


echoes in the dark

by coruscatingcatastrophe



Series: echoes in the dark 'verse [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Crying, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Has Abandonment Issues, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Lance (Voltron) is a Good Friend, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Lance (Voltron), Suicidal Thoughts, Team as Family, Trust Issues, Vomiting, so much crying im so sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 139,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23913007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coruscatingcatastrophe/pseuds/coruscatingcatastrophe
Summary: Maybe it wouldn’t be such a problem, he thinks, if he could just tell Lance the truth. Maybe, he thinks, then Lance would understand. And he wouldn’t get so pissed at him for almost accidentally killing himself once a week. Maybe it would be easier, if he could just be a little more honest with them both.But the thing is, it’snoteasy. If things wereeasy,Keith wouldn’t be out on the training deck every night until he’s so exhausted that he can’t see straight—until he reaches that point of fading out of focus just long enough for the gladiator to sweep his legs out from under him. And if things had an easy explanation, then he wouldn’t need Lance to patch him up in the hours where all of their friends are asleep. And he wouldn’t be bleeding. And he wouldn’t behurting._____Keith tries to navigate leadership and the messy concept of love in all of its forms—all while trying to keep the darkest, buried secrets from his past from bubbling back to the surface. It doesn’t go as well as you might expect.
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) & Everyone, Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: echoes in the dark 'verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926937
Comments: 92
Kudos: 368





	1. always on the brink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You keep saying that.” He’s got the alcohol wipes out now, wiping away blood with the same ease he swings his bayard between his fingers. Keith ignores the urge to wince at the sting. “You keep saying you’re sorry . You never tell me what for. You never tell me why you’re out on the training deck so late, voluntarily letting yourself get beaten to a pulp by our resident asshole robot. I don’t want you to tell me you’re sorry. I want you to give me a reason.” 
> 
> Keith ignores the instinctive urge that rises in him—that press of I’m sorry, a constant in the back of his throat. With Lance, with everyone. He always feels like he should be sorry for something, but he can never give anyone a reason why. It’s the story of his life. 

“Man, you really did a number on yourself this time, didn’t you?” 

_‘The number’_ in question is a considerably deep gash, about four inches long at most: splitting normally pale skin into a chasm from which blood flows as freely as a river. And the blood _does_ flow—down his leg, over his hands, into the fabric of the torn bodysuit that Lance insisted he use to apply pressure until he got him to the medbay. It doesn’t look too great. It looks, though Keith is grudging to admit it, like the kind of injury that would warrant a trip to the medbay. 

Two years into this war, this is the type of injury that the paladins don’t see very often in regular training anymore. Maybe occasionally, when they’re trying out a new training sequence that they aren’t very familiar with or particularly skilled in. Maybe once in a blue moon when Allura decides to play the part of merciless combat instructor and bump the gladiator level up to eleven (though to her, it’s all good fun). 

Very rarely in one-on-one combat with the gladiator, anymore. After all, they aren’t novices anymore. They aren’t the kids who they were when they accepted their calling as defenders of the universe. No longer are they unpracticed enough, are they _foolish_ enough to let the Altean training bot get the best of them. 

Except for Keith, apparently. Keith is foolish enough to still let the gladiator kick his ass, even at twenty-one years old and with more real battles under his belt than most of the people his age back on Earth will ever see in their whole lives. 

This would be embarrassing enough if it were a one-time occurrence. The worst part about Lance always stumbling upon his late-night accidental injuries is that _Lance is always stumbling upon his late-night accidental injuries._

This is maybe the second time this phoeb—which isn’t saying much, considering they’re only a movement and a half into it. Keith has lost count of how many times it’s been, _total_. He thinks Lance probably knows how many. He thinks if he were to ask, Lance would probably give him an answer. 

He does not ask. He avoids Lance’s eye, looks around at the mostly-dark infirmary around them. The blue lights lining the cryopods, imbedded in the ceiling. They burn his eyes if he stares for too long. He says, “It’s not that bad.” 

Lance makes a noise of indignation, or maybe affront. “‘Not that bad,’” he imitates in a poor impression of Keith’s voice. “‘Not that bad,’ says the boy who’s going to need Altean stitches for the _third time in as many weeks_.” 

Oh. Three times in three weeks. Give or take—space weeks run a little longer than Earth weeks—and since math isn’t really Keith’s niche, he doesn’t feel like calculating the exact percentage of times that means he’s sent himself to the castle-equivalent of the ER. He thinks it probably wouldn’t matter if he drew up exact numbers, anyway. Lance would be pissed no matter what. 

And yeah, Lance is pissed. 

He’s good at hiding it. Lance McClain is the kind of person who can hate a person’s guts and you’d never know if you didn’t know him well enough to catch the barest amount of tightness in his otherwise trademarked-sunshine smile. The fact of the matter is, though, Keith _does_ know him that well. And there’s more than just a tightness around his mouth to indicate that he is not pleased with the situation he’s found Keith in. In the brightness of the lamp over their heads, meant to illuminate the severity of injuries and not really any space beyond that, Keith still picks up on the dark flash in Lance’s deep blue eyes. The way he isn’t chatting away like his usual easygoing self. How he assesses Keith clinically, hands moving in method without a pause given for a reassuring shoulder-squeeze, or a second spared to look up and meet Keith’s eyes with an effortless, comforting smile. 

He hasn’t met Keith’s eyes since he found him on the deck. That was maybe ten minutes ago. (Which, with Lance, is about equivalent to three lifetimes.) 

The thing about Lance is that when he’s mad at you, it makes you feel _disappointed_ in yourself. Even if you don’t regret what you did, you feel like you _should_ , solely because the weight of Lance’s anger is the kind of weight that requires a level of strength that doesn’t exist to shoulder it. 

Keith, especially, is weak beneath it. His throat hurts from the pressure of the lump pressing against his larynx. “Lance. I—I’m sorry.” 

Another thing about Lance: he doesn’t hand out forgiveness for free. Keith thinks a lot of people have that misconception about the blue paladin; that because he is kind, he’s also a pushover. But while Lance may be as supportive as the immovable structure of a city wall, that contains the natural accompanying meaning that he doesn’t bend easily. And he’s heard this apology too many times recently to truly give it a lot of consideration. 

“You keep saying that.” He’s got the alcohol wipes out now, wiping away blood with the same ease he swings his bayard between his fingers. Keith ignores the urge to wince at the sting. “You keep saying you’re _sorry_ . You never tell me what for. You never tell me why you’re out on the training deck so late, voluntarily letting yourself get beaten to a pulp by our resident asshole robot. I don’t want you to tell me you’re sorry. I want you to give me a _reason_.” 

Keith ignores the instinctive urge that rises in him—that press of _I’m sorry,_ a constant in the back of his throat. With Lance, with everyone. He always feels like he should be sorry for something, but he can never give anyone a reason why. It’s the story of his life. 

So, barely, he doesn’t say he’s sorry again. He stares as his pale skin becomes once again pale, the blood erasing as easily as if it was never there in the first place, as if the evidence of it doesn’t signify anything. As if it’s nothing. Maybe it is. He says, “I can’t do that.” He thinks, at one point in his relationship with Lance, he might have sounded defensive. Now, his words are permeated with a thin layer of defeat. And he hopes Lance can’t hear it.

(And he knows that he can.) 

And Lance says, “Why not? I can’t keep—I can’t keep playing the part of your clandestine candy-striper, Keith. It’s been months of me saving your ass from bleeding out on the training room floor. And at first I bought the accident excuse, because I thought you had too much on your plate, and I didn’t pry, because I thought you needed a friend more than an interrogator. And I thought: _this will_ _end when we get Shiro back_. But you haven’t been getting better since he got back; you’ve been getting worse. And calling all of these little injuries _accidents_ isn’t cutting it anymore, Keith, and . . . and I can’t just patch you up and let you go on your way without at least something, anymore. Something feels off with you, and I need to know what. Because I’m _scared_ that one night I’m going to be too late, and I’m going to walk onto that deck to find that you’ve bled to death.” 

“That’s not going to happen,” Keith whispers. Even to his own ears, the assurance leaves much to be desired. An entirely new assurance, probably. Or a different person giving it. Keith’s already proven himself unreliable. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be such a problem, he thinks, if he could just tell Lance the truth. Maybe, he thinks, then Lance would understand. And he wouldn’t get so pissed at him for almost accidentally killing himself once a week. Maybe it would be easier, if he could just be a little more honest with them both. 

But the thing is, it’s _not_ easy. If things were _easy_ , Keith wouldn’t be out on the training deck every night until he’s so exhausted that he can’t see straight—until he reaches that point of fading out of focus just long enough for the gladiator to sweep his legs out from under him. And if things had an easy explanation, then he wouldn’t need Lance to patch him up in the hours where all of their friends are asleep. And he wouldn’t be bleeding. And he wouldn’t be _hurting._

“Please, just. You don’t have to worry about me, Lance. I just . . . I never know when to call it quits.” 

Lance looks at him, eyes dark, not just with anger anymore, he realizes. That’s not the face of someone who is too angry to speak. It’s the frustrated concern of someone afraid of saying the wrong thing. 

And there’s confliction writing itself all over his face, and he’s saying, “I really, really wish I could believe you, Keith.” 

Keith looks down. Lance has smoothed that waxy Altean medical paper over the crevice in his leg; all that’s left is to melt it into his skin. The hardest part. The _burn_. He whispers, “Yeah. I . . . I guess I wish you could, too.” 

He thinks: _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_.

  
  


_____

  
  
  


On a good night, Keith’s dreams begin in the desert. 

He’ll close his eyes and breathe dry air into his lungs; let his bare feet sink into the sandy earth, disregarding the way it scorches. He will hear the sound of his father’s voice, a reprimand that Keith’s five-year-old self might have taken seriously, had each word not been steeped in laughter: “ _Keith, how many times do I have to tell you not to forget your shoes in the truck?_ ” 

He will run, and he will feel his father’s arms wrapping around him, pulling him out of the sand, and he will laugh because he thinks this is the funniest thing, because he always forgets his shoes on purpose and his dad _always_ falls for it, because his father is always there to pick him up before he can truly get burned. He lives in the certainty that his father will always be there to rescue him from the threat of burned soles, to protect him from any danger. 

(His father is a firefighter, after all. He’s a hero. He’s _invincible_.) 

These are the good nights: he is a child and he is with his father and he is free. These are the realities, the sensations he tries to grasp onto upon waking, to hold close while the remainders swirl in the back of his mind, the presence too dangerous and sickening to acknowledge. 

What comes after the good always comes from the good. He’s running—away from his father, he thinks, weaving around the cacti; it’s a game—and he can feel the searing earth shifting beneath his feet, kicking up dirt and dust in his wake until eventually, his father disappears into it. When he looks back to find him, he isn’t there. 

And then comes the sudden weight of fear slamming into his chest; a voice in his heard urging: _run, run faster._ A voice insistent that: _they’re coming_. 

  
And though Keith can never quite grasp who _they_ are—at least, not at first—he can sense that whoever it is, it isn’t good. The word _danger_ presents itself to him, a flash in this suddenly colorless wasteland. So he runs, and as he runs the ground becomes more unbearable to cross, and he looks far off into the distance, praying that some oasis will present itself. There is nothing, until finally there is; he catches sight of it in the very same moment that he hears the footsteps behind him drawing nearer, gaining ground. It’s a place that he somehow knows, without having to be told, where he will safe from whoever is behind him, if only he can get there in time. 

His heart pounds, and his lungs are scorching inside his ribcage, and his feet are twin aching, blistering things beneath him as he stumbles over the cacti he loves so much. He is _running_ with all of the fear-infused adrenaline his young heart is pumping out—but they are too, and they’re wearing shoes. Keith supposes that he really should have listened to his father, after all. 

He runs, and each time he dreams this way, he believes he will make it to the safe place this time. He counts the steps beneath him and he estimates the steps it will take to get there, and he believes that this time, _this time I will make it._

And then he feels the arm wraps around his waist, pluck him out of the sand; it is joined by the hand that reaches up to muffle his terrified scream. 

On the good nights, this is the part where he wakes up. 

On the bad nights, it’s only the beginning of a nightmare that never really ends. 

  
  


_____

  
  


On the nights Keith doesn’t want to risk it, he wanders the castle halls and tries not to feel like one of those ancient Altean ghosts that Lance is so afraid of. 

He tells himself that he’s just doing the responsible Black Paladin thing, checking up on each of his teammates, securing the perimeter and all that. Truthfully, sometimes Keith is just grasped by this heart-stopping fear that if he doesn’t constantly check on his friends—the only family he has—they’ll disappear. 

It’s a problem of his that hadn’t really started until Shiro went missing, but now that Shiro’s been back for months, he’s beginning to think it’s a compulsion that’s here to stay. Maybe not all that surprising, when you take into account all of his other impulses. 

But it’s just—it’s the only thing that makes him feel even a little bit better, just for a _moment_ of reassurance, even if that moment is born out of several minutes of crippling anxiety. It’s a gamble he takes every time. Sometimes the moment is even enough, for a little while. 

There are some nights that he comes across no one the whole night. Some nights everyone is exhausted from a battle or a banquet and leaves him the only one unable to calm the storm in his mind long enough to sleep. Some nights, though, he’ll find Hunk alert and in the kitchen, baking through a bout of homesickness or unabating anxiety. Or he’ll find Allura on the training deck—the only person besides himself who only knows how to work through her problems by fighting them—or Pidge, typing away at her computer with the frantic air of a madman, or maybe just a desperately sleep-deprived teenage girl. 

It’s always a surprise to find Lance up during any point in the sleep cycle, though considering how often he’s come to find Keith on the training deck, it shouldn’t be at this point. Somehow, though, it’s different to stumble upon Lance alone on the bridge, surrounded by the star maps, appearing as lonely as a star himself in the center of it all. These are the nights when Lance doesn’t have to be worried or frustrated or angry with him: sometimes Keith will come in, and he will sit with Lance in the center of this holographic galaxy, and he will listen to Lance tell stories from Earth in this quietly sad voice that could never belong to him in the daylight. 

Coran must be the only one of them who has a healthy sleep schedule at this point, he thinks. Keith never runs into him, so he assumes as much. He could be wrong; the castle, after all, is a large place, with plenty of wings and rooms he’s never even considered exploring. But it makes him feel a little better to think that at least _one_ of them is getting the rest they all deserve. 

He never goes looking for Shiro anymore. He thinks Shiro would read everything in his face, and he doesn’t want him to see. His brother has had to put up with far too much of his bullshit; Keith thinks there’s a point where it becomes too repetitive to be worth wasting his time. He thinks Shiro has too much on his own plate, anyway. Being taken by the Galra, not once but _twice_. . . that’s done something to him, whether or not Shiro will ever admit it. But he doesn’t have to admit it for him to know; Keith’s pretty much the expert on recognizing when someone’s pretending to be better than they really are. He sees it every time he looks into a mirror. 

(He hasn’t looked into a mirror in weeks. He can’t stand to see it, himself.) 

Some nights when he’s completed the rounds, he’ll return to whoever happens to still be awake. He’ll sit cross-legged on the kitchen island and listen to Hunk ramble and taste-test whatever he’s experimenting with, or he’ll return to challenge Allura to a casual, distracting spar, or he’ll come back to find Pidge on the verge of passing out over her keyboard and carry her to bed. And of course, there is Lance. 

And these are the nights when he’s reminded that the love he feels for this family he’s found for himself is so intense that it pours right from his heart into their hands, whether they can feel it or not. He loves them so much that it is an ache in his chest, something so new and different from any kind of pain he’d ever felt before them. But it is oh so terrifying every time to remember, a paralyzing fear when he reminds himself—every time Hunk smiles at him or Allura extends a hand to help him to his feet, every time Pidge trusts him to bring her safely from the lab to her bed or Lance confides some insecurity or fear that he would never bring up to any of the others—that every time, _every time_ could be the last time. If he can’t keep everything under control, if he loses his grip for a _moment_ and slips, then it’s all going to come crashing down around him. 

And if that were to happen—if they _knew_ —then he’s terrified to think of what could happen. 

He can’t lose them: they’re all that he has. _I can’t lose them_. 

So every time, he thinks: _it won’t be the last time. I won’t let it be the last time._

But every time, it begins to feel like more and more of a lie. 

  
  


_____

  
  


In the mornings, immediately after breakfast and before they do anything else, Allura always insists on these diplomacy check-up meetings. She insists they’re necessary; Keith believes they’re an unnecessary evil. And that’s on the days that he can even stay focused throughout most of them. 

“The Jrtheens have reported seeing suspicious ship activity in their star sector. They fear it may be the Galra returning, perhaps in a plot to reinvade, and have requested Voltron to return and scope out the area.” 

Recently, Keith’s been having this problem where the more he tries to focus on something, the harder it becomes. He finds himself wandering and twisting down the labyrinthine corridors of his mind during conversations until he’s lost: words filter through his ears without passing on any of their significance, sound a concept left on the backburner while a buzzing, pulsing throb takes its place. 

His head is killing him—this mind-splitting migraine that tends to follow after the worst nights (and generally indicates that it is also going to be a very, very bad day). The pulse of it in his temples, accompanied by the static droning in his ears, is nearly loud and distracting enough to drown out the circle of miffed groaning that follows Allura’s announcement. 

Pidge grumbles, “The Jrtheens are _paranoid_. This is the fifth time since we liberated the planet that they’ve claimed the Galra are back. Honestly, it’s beginning to read a little like the boy who cried wolf.” 

“Wolf? Is that some expression of human distress?” Coran asks curiously. The static is growing louder, like the dial of a radio being turned up to eleven. Keith tries to focus on his breathing, tries to envision it as a steady current of oxygen that flows and ebbs. Tries not to pay attention to the rising hum, words beginning to break through like a phone call breaking over a bad connection: _who’s going to believe you?_

“No, it’s a story that—nevermind.” The green paladin sighs. “What else you got?” 

Allura begins again: “We have over two hundred new requests from potential allies who have expressed interest in joining the coalition. Coran and I were talking through some ideas of how to go about meeting with all of them, and were thinking that perhaps we should begin with the . . .” and there it goes again, the princess’s voice carrying away from him on some swelling tide. He shuts his eyes as it closes over his head. It pulls him under. 

Spits him back out. “—eith? Keith. Are you even paying attention?” Allura’s voice draws him out, draws his gaze reluctantly up to her stern, unyielding face. 

“Uh—yeah,” he mutters, “Whatever you think is best. Go with that.” 

Allura’s severe expression softens, just a fraction, the moment he meets her eyes. “Keith, are you alright?” she asks, apparent concern lacing her voice. “You look . . . pale. Are you feeling well?” 

“Just a headache. I’m fine.” He redirects his gaze to his hands on the table, as bleached of color and glove-clad as always. He waits for Allura to pick back up with the report. Instead, Hunk speaks up. 

“Buddy, do you need to lay down? Or maybe a space-Aspirin?”

“ _No_.” Keith allows himself one deep breath, and when he lifts his head, he straightens his gaze to fix Allura with a collected, even stare. The white noise, for a moment, flattens to a dull drone. “Continue with the update, Allura. What’s on today’s agenda?” 

There is one beat of silence. Two beats, and Keith doesn’t break his stare, a silent challenge: _ask me again, if you doubt me that much_. Three beats where Allura hesitates, and then she breaks the spell with a blink, clears her throat. “Right. Well, I believe, in the name of the trust our coalition is based on, we must go assuage the Jrtheens’ fears. Even if nothing is truly going on, they are one of our most influential and generous allies. We can’t afford to give them a reason to not trust us.” 

More groans emit from the paladins, but no one disagrees with Allura. At the end of the day, no matter how paranoid the Jrtheens are, there’s no denying that their wealth and resources are one of the coalition’s frontrunners in providing to the billions of others across the universe who require major relief efforts. And the Jrtheens aren’t bad people, truly. They’re just a little . . . overly anxious, sometimes. Which is understandable when you take into account all that they suffered at the Empire’s hands. 

Keith finds himself fading out more than in throughout the rest of Allura’s report, and subsequently tuning out the concerned looks that his teammates direct at him up until she finally concludes the meeting and they’re free to leave.

“Keith,” he hears someone call after him as he’s doing just that. He’s barely made it halfway down the hall which, honestly, is probably farther than he should have expected to get. He mentally curses himself for thinking Shiro would just let him slip under the radar after zoning out like that in front of their team. It’s never just a headache with him, and his brother _knows_ that. 

“I don’t want to talk, Shiro.” Maybe, he hopes, if he keeps walking away, Shiro will just let it go. _Maybe_ —

But, “Keith,” Shiro repeats, and jogs forward until he can fall into step with him, successively squashing Keith’s newborn hope. “How frequent have they gotten, recently?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Keith swings around the next corner, eyes facing forward. He can feel Shiro’s burning into his temple. It’s nearly intense enough to drown out everything happening _inside_ his head. 

“ _Keith_ .” And the urgency in his voice _is_ intense enough for him to stop short, because that’s not Shiro’s _I’m-your-worried-brother_ voice: that’s his leader voice. “This is important. Tonight there is a possibility—slim though it may be—that we’ll be facing a battle. You all have to be at one hundred percent, and if you’re _not_ , it’s important to say so, so that we can cover you. Otherwise you risk getting hurt. The others—” 

And that stops Keith short in a way that Shiro simply being worried about him wouldn’t. It’s the incredulity that freezes his feet, that turns his head to see if Shiro is _actually_ serious right now. 

Sure enough—his eyes are dark with worry, but his jaw is tense with the severity that never really makes an appearance unless Keith has pulled some risky move in a fight that could have easily gone very, very wrong. 

Keith’s mind is having a little bit of trouble, maybe through the current fog in his brain, piecing together why that look is on his brother’s face concerning this conversation. 

“I don’t need a lecture,” he says abruptly, searching Shiro’s face for any sign of movement, some fracture in the skin. “If you’re trying to tell me to be careful, maybe just _say_ that. And if you’re trying to tell me you doubt me—” 

“It’s not that.” 

“It’s what it sounds like.” Again, Keith turns forward, and shakes his head. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say I’m fine. I’m _handling_ everything fine. I’m not going to screw up any missions. Will you let me go now?” 

Shiro hesitates. It’s all Keith needs to start walking forward again, eyes fixed directly on the path in front of him. He just wants a minute to himself, a minute to _breathe_. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for. 

“Keith,” Shiro eventually begins a final time, but by this point, Keith’s reached the end of the hallway. He doesn’t look back at his brother as he turns onto the next one, the one that will lead him to his room and, if nothing else, seclusion. 

He doesn’t want to spend another second alone with his brother right now, and he thinks he makes that fact pretty clear when he presses the button to lock him out. 

  
  


_____

  
  


“Come on.” Keith, palms pressed to the surface of the particle barrier, closes his eyes and prays, _wills_ the lion to open her mind to him. “Please. You . . . you’re the only one who knows how to make it stop. You’re the only one who _can_ make it stop, and I . . . I really need a break, here.” 

Red’s eyes remain their dim, lifeless yellow, and no fiery greeting flashes up behind his own eyelids. She’s not going to talk to him, and Keith knew that before he even entered the hangar. The lions can _only_ communicate with their current paladin, and what he and Red had . . . 

_Broken_ , a voice comes from somewhere within him. He can’t tell who the voice belongs to: no one, everyone. The old phantoms from his nightmares. Himself. 

It maybe could have even come from Red, if she were speaking to him at all. He almost _wishes_ it was her, just to feel some spark of their old connection. He thinks there is very little he wouldn’t do just to have a _minute_ with her again. 

Because Red gets him. She’s _understands_ —which, of course she does, because she’s been inside his head. She had lived there, set up a warm hearth in the midst of Keith’s eternal bone-chilling fear, his undying chaos. She knew how to take the edge off. She knew how to make the pain easier to live with, to keep it from becoming crippling. 

It’s been _months_ since he’s had a moment of peace, and he can track the very moment it all began to crumble to the same moment Black claimed him and Red closed her mind. And with every moment that passes since then, it just keeps getting worse. 

“We might have a battle tonight, you know. And I just—I’m worried Shiro’s right. I don’t _want_ him to be, but if I can’t focus long enough to swing my sword, it could get someone hurt. And it’s getting _so hard to focus_ . Red, I keep circling the same thoughts over and over and _over_ . It’s like they’re expanding. The more I think about them, the _more_ I think about them. I couldn’t even pay attention during Allura’s mission report this morning. I feel like—like I’m going _insane_.” 

His hands are shaking, the movement stark against the stillness of the barrier. Keith presses in until he’s close enough to rest his forehead against it, feeling the last of his limited energy leave him in a weak, shuddery sigh. 

“I just want it to stop, Red,” he whispers, and misses her so fiercely that it pangs as a sharp, breath-stealing spear through his ribcage. “I just want to stop remembering. I want to stop _hurting_. I’m so tired of hurting.” 

The lion, isolated inside her barrier, does nothing. Says nothing. She just sits there like the token sculpture of an untouchable goddess, cold to the touch and as removed as if she were on a separate plane of existence. Keith supposes that that’s exactly what they are, now. 

The knowledge of it doesn’t make it hurt any less. Keith stays there, curled up on the floor as if at the feet of some spiritless idol, and lets the ache wash over him. 

He wonders if she misses him too. As much as he misses her. Wonders if she’d take him back if she could. 

And he wonders if maybe, maybe the reason for her silence isn’t that she can’t. Maybe it’s that she’s just as glad to be rid of his problems as he is desperate to be. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Everyone’s gathered on the bridge when they arrive to the Lexerr-9V system, ready to find nothing and assuage the Jrtheens fears of Galra presence, certain that there _is_ no presence to find. 

Which is why everyone—even the princess, though she’d be hard-pressed to admit it—is taken aback when, sure enough, they pop into the system only to be met with a handful of ships tattooed with the Empire’s emblem. 

“Quiznack,” Allura swears under her breath, “I truly was hoping for a night in . . .” 

“Guess you’ll have to reschedule,” Keith answers grimly. His head feels heavy on his shoulders, but he straightens them anyway; he’s learned that when you’re a leader, that’s just what you have to do. “Everyone, we should get to our lions.” 

They make it just in time: the instant they’re in their lions and ready to go is the very instant that the Galra take note of them and begin to fire. Within merely seconds they become aware that they aren’t dealing with anything too serious—they’ve fought against much, much larger numbers than the one they’re facing here—and Keith lets himself slip into autopilot mode. He’s still aware of the migraine pounding a metal fist against his brain, still aware of his exhaustion and the tense weight that comes from pressing back against all the things in his mind that he doesn’t want to give attention to. But he lets those things slip beneath the shielding veil of battle: the sounds of firing weaponry and his teammates’ voices in his ears; the sight of flashing lights and the undulating expanses of black space stretching off in all directions; the feel of Black’s controls beneath his hands. For those short, high-energy moments, he’s able to let everything else fade away into the untouchable regions of his mind. It’s a bit like when Red was in his head all the time. It’s an _almost, but not quite_ feeling. 

It’s like the second high after experiencing the first—realizing that what you felt before is something you’re never going to get again. And yet still you chase it, because that hit is the one that leaves you desperate, leaves you thinking: _surely next time will be different, will be like before, will be_ more.

The battle is ending, his friends’ celebratory cheers and _whoop!_ s filling up Keith’s atmosphere, and he’s floating in that _almost but not quite_ state when suddenly, like someone reaching a hand through a watery surface and drastically disrupting it, he feels Black _push_ in his mind. 

It’s a familiar push—too familiar; she’s _always_ pushing—and a highly unwelcome one. It’s the push that feels like a _real_ battle, a push that forces him to the limits of his energy and his strength, a push that he can feel pressing him further and further to the edge each time. 

The thing about the lions is that they’re all different in these intrinsic, enigmatic ways. They fill up the spaces of their paladins’ heads differently. With Red, at first it had been about proving he was worthy of her, and she had invaded everything instantly. And then she had been guilty; she’d never explicitly _admitted_ it, but he could feel it in the way she guarded him after, apologies spoken through the care behind every feeling transmitted between them. And then she had been _his_ , and he had been hers, and it’s impossible to understand anything about the lions but Keith had been sure she loved him, would have _died_ for him if it were possible for the lions to die. 

But Black isn’t like Red. Black, from what he’s been able to learn about her, is careful, methodical—the way a leader such as herself should be. She hadn’t blazed up in his mind like a wildfire, seeking to take and burn everything into herself. She hadn’t _taken_ anything, except for in the most drastic occasions in battle, when she’d had no choice. He’s certain that she knows, but she hadn’t gotten ahold of her understanding of him the same way Red had. 

And because of that, she doesn’t give anything, either. There is no soothing balm that rises up to meet the volatile, angry fires in his mind. She doesn’t send relief to aid in the mnemonic wars that he can never win on his own. Instead of helping, she wants him to _open his mind_ to her. She wants him to _give_ , willingly. 

But Keith can’t give her what she wants; it’s hard enough to deal with the fights that surge in his subconscious. _Purposely_ bringing them to the surface is unthinkable. So they’re always at an impasse, two separate sides of an argument that Keith _can’t_ lose. Not this one. All he ever asks of her is to just leave him alone. _If you’re not going to help, then just leave me alone_. 

But still she pushes, and she pushes: this insistent, urging voice in his mind, using feelings in place of words, using _images_ that—

“Shut _up_ ,” he snaps, feels his hands shaking on her controls, when he raises them to press to his temples. It’s a useless gesture, because she’s _inside_ his head, but she makes it impossible to _think_ straight. “ _Stop_ , Black, you’re going to make it worse, _please_.”

She stills. And for a moment, everything else does too. He listens to the sound of his own heartbeat, thrumming too hard and too fast against his ribcage, rushing as loudly in his ears as rapids over a rocky riverbed. He breathes in, coming down, counting: _one, two, three . . ._

Over the comm-link, the connection crackles as Lance’s cautiously concerned voice fills the silence. “Keith? You, uh—is everything okay? Are you hurt?” 

His heart stops. His lungs, mid-inhale on Lance’s question—more like a reminder of his, and everyone else’s, existence—, choke on nothing. The universe narrows down to Keith barely restraining himself from panicking long enough to clear his throat of debris, calm his lungs and his heart, and convincingly say, “Sorry, Black just . . . anyway, it’s nothing. Everything’s all good here. You guys?” 

Keith is barely able to refrain himself from taking off back to the castle before everyone can give their affirmatives. He’s already dealing with two slip-ups too many for one day. He waits until the others are safely docked in their hangars, joins them long enough for them to be able to look at him and confirm that he’s visibly unharmed, and departs from them as soon as they reach the split that will take them either to the common areas or their personal quarters. 

He tells them he’s turning in early and to tell Shiro and Coran goodnight for him; tries not to recall to mind the conversation he’d had with his brother in this same hall that morning as he makes his way into his room. It’s evident that his success is minimal in the way he reaches automatically to lock his door. 

He feels guilty for thinking it, because he knows Shiro means well, but he’s really not in the mood for an “ _I told you so.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story has been floating around in my head since before voltron even ended, and has been through about a thousand drafts since then. which is kind of insane—considering that after all of those, this still isn't actually finished yet—but it's really important to me that everything this fic covers is depicted correctly. a lot of the central elements are things that i haven't experienced personally, but people who i'm close to have, and the last thing i would ever want is to unintentionally simplify or make light of their struggles. 
> 
> with that said, if you've read the tags, you can probably tell where this is going. i'll be adding trigger warnings in the chapters as i go, but if at any point you feel or think you'd be uncomfortable, then for your own safety, please don't read this. or if you have a question, you can ask in the comments or find me on tumblr under the same username. 
> 
> also: the title and sort of the theme of the whole fic comes from the song "sweet surrender" by against the current. it relates pretty hard to klance in this fic, and is just a good song in general, so i definitely recommend going and listening to it if you want. 
> 
> thanks for reading! <3


	2. they say don't open old wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith closes his eyes, reaches past the thoughts crowded in the front of his mind for the ones that don’t get looked at quite as much. He thinks of sand and a different sort of sea from Lance’s, an ocean of cacti and scraggly grass and rocks. He thinks of a time when he was able to be covered in dust and dirt from head-to-toe without feeling like he was dirty. 
> 
> “The desert,” he finally says, and it feels like something soft in his mouth, something reverent, like a prayer. “I miss the desert.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all of the kudos and kind comments so far! they really mean a lot. i hope you enjoy this next chapter :) 
> 
> chapter title comes from "old wounds" by pvris

_ In the eternally preserved archives of Keith’s mind, the thing that always stands out the most about this memory is the darkened phone screen in his hand. His fingers clenched so tightly around it that his knuckles bleach to an almost blinding white. They are the same color as his fear. He can’t see anything past them.  _

_ He can’t hear anything past the dull ringing in his ears. Past  _ his  _ voice, only a recording, but still so, so real. As if he’s right in this room. As if he never really left; as if all of these months of freedom and safety that Keith has fought so hard for was for  _ nothing _. It was all for nothing.  _

_ “ _ Did you really think you could get away from me that easily?”  _ he had said, and from the sound of his voice alone Keith could picture the look on his face. The casual condescension, the cruel amusement curling his mouth down. The burning anger in his green eyes—eyes the color of poison, of things you should know better than to go near.  _

_ Keith had been stupid, then. And he’s coming to the sudden and devastating revelation that he hasn’t stopped being stupid since—even now. Because he  _ had  _ let himself believe. He had believed that he would never find him here; he had believed when Shiro told him he was  _ safe _ , here. He shouldn’t have fallen for it. Shouldn’t have let his hopes build up. The security and comfort he’s let himself fall into, at the Garrison of all places, are both luxuries that he allowed to wash over everything that he knows to fear. Everything he can’t afford to not be afraid of.  _

Did you really think you could get away from me that easily? 

_ Keith has been so, so stupid.  _

_ He doesn’t know how much time passes while he sits there, catatonic with panic, phone still gripped so tightly in his hand that he thinks his fingers must have frozen around it. Enough time for him to hear the key turning, the door unlocking to signal that Shiro and Adam are home.  _

_ “Keith, we’re home. I got you some—Keith?” Shiro’s voice goes from casually cheerful to concerned in the amount of time it takes for him to find Keith’s immobile form on the couch. “Keith, hey, what’s wrong?”  _

_ He feels, more than sees, the man who he’s beginning to consider a brother move across the room to perch in front of him on the edge of the coffee table. Shakily, Keith exhales, and feels his limbs begin to tingle with the first signs of feeling again. When he is able to lift his head, he does so to find Shiro’s warm, patient eyes already on him. Waiting.  _

_ Keith already knows, something like this isn’t something that he can handle on his own. He isn’t strong enough for this. He  _ can’t  _ fight this, all on his own. That’s why he was trapped for so long. Until Shiro came and gave him an escape—even if the man hadn’t really known, at the time, the mass of what he was doing.  _

Shiro can fix this,  _ he thinks.  _ Shiro will know what to do.  _ And the knowledge is assuring, even as Keith feels the fear and panic begin to rise back up in his throat when he forces himself to speak. “Shiro—” The desperation is closing around his lungs, nearly impossible to breath around. Suffocating, as if the earth is closing over his head, like the grave has finally come to collect him after all. “Shiro— _ he found me.” 

  
  


_____

  
  


Kolivan’s calls begin to present themselves as his way out, and Keith begins to hate himself for the relief he feels when they come. He feels ashamed. 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to be with his team. He always wants to be with them, with  _ Voltron _ . It’s the only place where he’s ever felt like he belongs. He _ never wants to leave them _ . 

But it’s only a matter of time, he thinks, before he’s left with no choice. Since Shiro got back, Keith’s reins on leadership have been slippery at best. Keith is supposed to still be the leader, but it’s hard to remember that when Shiro’s voice is always on the other end of the comms, disagreeing with every one of his calls. And sometimes, it’s like the others forget that Shiro isn’t the Black Paladin anymore; sometimes, Keith almost forgets, too. Sometimes he  _ wants  _ to forget. He’d thought, maybe a little naively, that the second Shiro got back things would just go back to normal somehow. But Black won’t let him in—the same way Red won’t let  _ him _ in—and he hasn’t been able to reestablish that bond yet. None of them are sure if he’ll  _ ever  _ be able to. 

And that puts them at an impasse, because if Shiro is still trying to lead but Keith is the Black Paladin, if the others are beginning to listen to Shiro more—and maybe they should, he thinks, maybe that’s for the best—then that means Keith isn’t really good for anything. The way Shiro’s been treating him recently isn’t lessening that feeling any. He keeps trying to talk to him, but it feels more like he’s trying to back him into a corner; he tells him, one afternoon during a training break, that: “ _ We need to talk after practice,”  _ and Keith is barely able to hold himself together for the rest of their drills. 

_ It’s not Shiro’s fault,  _ he had thought to himself, trying to bring himself back down.  _ He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know because you’ve never told him. He does not mean what that used to mean _ . But Keith has never been too great at the self-soothing thing, and by the end of practice that day, it had no longer been Shiro’s voice in his head, but someone else's entirely. He had to hide in some obscure closet in one of the castle’s far wings for the rest of the day just to feel  _ safe _ again, like the shadows all around him weren’t lying in wait just to ambush him at a weak moment. 

Keith doesn’t want to feel like that in his own home. He doesn’t want to feel like he has to  _ hide  _ in his own home. 

So when Kolivan calls him the first time, citing some sort of mission in X quadrant to obtain Y information, Keith doesn’t hesitate to accept it. And then again, the next time the Blade leader calls. And then again, and again. 

Because  _ it’s only a matter of time, anyway. _ And he’s tired of feeling like a cornered animal. At least when he’s with the Blade, he feels like he’s  _ doing  _ something. Even if all they’re doing is stealing information on the Empire’s trade routes. The rush of adrenaline, the way he’s  _ expected  _ to be silent and secretive and solemn all the time—it  _ works _ . No one asks him any questions, and he doesn’t owe anyone any answers. It’s the only point in his day that he doesn’t feel like he’s drowning—a contradiction, seeing as he could literally die at any moment, if anything goes even the slightest bit wrong. 

_ Knowledge or death, _ Kolivan says, the unchangeable mantra of the Blade. And maybe it should worry him, how little the motto affects him. 

It worries his friends. 

“Keith, I think we should discuss this,” Allura says tensely, catching him one evening as he’s returning home. He’s not quite fast enough to slip past her—and even if he was, the look in her eyes would stop him anyway. 

It’s not the severity in them, though there is that. It’s that there’s worry painted there among the lavender-turquoise, plain as day to see. When they worry, he thinks, is the worst. When they worry it  _ hurts _ him, because he knows that it’s his fault that they’re feeling that way. 

“There’s nothing to discuss, Allura,” he says anyway, matching her tension with his own. He looks past her, over her shoulder, so he won’t have to look into her eyes anymore. “Let me go—I need to shower.” 

“You can shower in a few moments. Right now, you  _ must  _ answer me. Keith, this isn’t like you. You’re leaving at every possible opportunity, as if you’re constantly just waiting for the chance to get away. You don’t look well: you’re exhausted all the time, you’re losing weight—” 

A sick feeling settles over Keith, then, and he misses whatever it is the princess says next, her voice fading out behind a wall of white noise before rolling back in amidst a backdrop of static, “—we are  _ worried  _ about you. Keith, we are more than just your team—more than just your friends, even. We are  _ family _ . If you’re going through a hard time, surely you must know you can  _ talk  _ to us. If this is about your place with Voltron—” 

“It’s not,” Keith interrupts her. He feels like his chest is too tight, has to consciously remind himself to breathe,  _ breathe, _ as he forces himself to meet Allura’s gaze again. There’s confusion, there’s  _ worry _ . Determination, to convince him to talk. She’s about to be disappointed. “Allura, I won’t say it again. I am  _ fine _ . Have any of you stopped to think that maybe I just want to know more about where I come from? There’s a whole side of myself that I know  _ nothing  _ about, and this is the first chance I’ve gotten to learn about it. Is there something wrong with that?” 

Allura appears to be taken aback; Keith doesn’t blame her, because his reason is complete bullshit, pulled out of seemingly nothing. But he  _ sounds  _ genuine, which is the thing that counts. He can see her buying it. 

“I—of course there’s nothing  _ wrong  _ with it,” she falters, something conflicted visibly warring with her desire to be supportive. That’s a big thing for Allura; Keith knows she feels awful about how she treated him when the truth behind his heritage came out. He feels like she’s always trying to make it up to him in some way or another—aside from the repeated, heartfelt and grieved apologies, she’d released a public statement to every ally in the coalition that if they didn’t accept Keith’s leadership, his half-Galra heritage and all, she would no longer consider them alliance members. 

They’d lost quite a few members over that. He’d asked her if it was really worth it and she had looked at him and said, “I would have lost far more for you, Keith.” 

He feels like a complete asshole, using that against her now. 

He doesn’t know what else he can  _ do _ . 

“Of course you’re allowed to seek out knowledge of that part of yourself. But we . . .  _ I  _ don’t want you to sacrifice your wellbeing for it. I care deeply for you, Keith. I don’t want to see you get hurt over something when you don’t have to.” 

He needs to leave. He can  _ feel  _ the carefully stitched-together lines surrounding his mind unraveling; it’s echoing “ _ you don’t look well”  _ and morphing it into “ _ you look unhealthy”; “you’re losing weight,”  _ inevitably adding to it,  _ “you know how much I hate that. People are going to think you’re anorexic.”  _

He breathes, and breathes, and breathes. He looks up into Allura’s glistening eyes, and he smiles. “I understand. Really. And I appreciate that you guys care so much. But I swear, going on these missions isn’t hurting me. I’m okay, Princess.” 

For a long moment, Allura holds his gaze, and he can’t read a thing in her eyes. In his head, he’s thinking:  _ please, please, please _ . 

And then she relents. With a sigh, she nods her head, acquiescing. “If you’re sure,” she says, “Just know that everything I said holds true. We  _ are  _ your family. We love you.” Softly, she presses a hand to his cheek, and then follows it with a kiss that he feels even when she disappears down the hall, around the corner. 

There’s a part of him that wants to cry, he feels so guilty. He’s never had to lie in the face of someone who cares so much, and then had that person really  _ believe  _ the lie. This is different from the lies he tells Shiro and Lance, gritted between his teeth and generally unconvincing. This is something dirty, a grit that settles beneath his fingernails, a grime that sinks below the first layer of skin. It digs deep, a guilt that drills directly into his bones. 

He goes to take his shower, hoping that it will provide the sense of  _ clean _ ness that he so badly needs. He turns the water to the hottest possible temperature and scrubs his skin once, twice, three times. Four, for good measure. It’s not enough. Five’s the lucky number. (It isn’t—it’s just when he’s finally able to get a grip on himself and set the bar of soap down without picking it up again.) 

He crouches on the shower floor while the water pours over his head, elbows on his knees, head between his hands. He tries to imagine himself at the center of the desert during monsoon season, tries to envision all of the dirt, the  _ guilt _ , sloughing off of him as if it is that easy. 

It’s a therapeutic image, a  _ nice  _ image, one he would like to believe in the truth of—but it is never the reality. 

The reality is this: him, the voice in his mind, and the evidence of his sickness as he coughs up everything in his body onto the shower floor. The reality is that evidence swirling down the drain, swept away by the water that pours down not to cleanse, but to erase. 

  
  


_____

  
  


“Is there anywhere you miss?” Lance asks him, late one night. “I feel like I always talk so much about home, but you never do.” 

Keith thinks about that for a moment, and then he leans back on his hands. Outside the observatory windows, the stars spin, and spin, and spin. “I don’t have as much to miss, I guess.” 

Lance cuts his gaze over to him, blue eyes skeptical, but not accusative. Curious, but not demanding. “One thing,” he says. “Tell me there’s one thing.” 

Keith closes his eyes, reaches past the thoughts crowded in the front of his mind for the ones that don’t get looked at quite as much. He thinks of sand and a different sort of sea from Lance’s, an ocean of cacti and scraggly grass and rocks. He thinks of a time when he was able to be covered in dust and dirt from head-to-toe without  _ feeling _ like he was dirty. 

“The desert,” he finally says, and it feels like something soft in his mouth, something reverent, like a prayer. “I miss the desert.” 

“Yeah?” Lance’s expression becomes more curiosity than skepticism as he sits up, looking down at him with those blue, blue eyes. They’re piercing in the near-darkness of the room. Keith feels caught. “What about it?” 

There’s a part of Keith that’s warning him: _stop now, stop before it gets too deep_. He doesn’t talk about his life before Voltron. Not with Lance—not with anyone. It’s something the others have noted, something they’ve all tried their hand at probing into. It’s a door that Keith is determined to keep shut, locked, guarded by sentinels that never sleep. No one goes in, no one goes out, and no one gets hurt. 

But it’s something about Lance—something about him that Keith  _ hates _ , something that he maybe, sort of loves—something about the way he looks at him, like he only wants to hear whatever  _ Keith _ wants to tell him. Like he can push without shoving. Like if Keith slams the door in his face, he  _ won’t  _ shove. He’ll let him put that barrier back up between them, even if he won’t necessarily like it.

Lance is the kind of person that Keith hasn’t encountered very many of, in his life. There’s something about him that’s just so openly  _ good _ . It’s not a goodness that can be assumed; it’s the kind that lives within, as if it was encoded into his DNA from the very beginning of his existence. 

To Keith, it’s a powerful thing that Lance probably doesn’t even know he  _ has _ . But he can break Keith down without ever seeing the war that goes on inside his head. Keith would maybe find it amazing, if he could forget that it’s also very dangerous. 

“When I was a kid,” he begins anyway, because he’s  _ weak _ , because maybe he just wants to keep those eyes on him for a little while longer, “my dad and I would drive out just—into the middle of nowhere. Usually at night, when the stars were out. I think he wanted me to have some sort of connection to space because of my mom. And I  _ did  _ love space, even then, but . . . I don’t know. I miss the days we’d drive out, the hot air and the cacti. The sun. Out here, everything feels cold all the time.” 

“Yeah,” Lance agrees quietly, and Keith knows that Lance  _ does  _ get that. It’s one of the things he misses most about Varadero. When Lance talks about home, he talks about the sun. 

Keith thinks about how strange it is, how they can share this one thing when their histories are so wildly different. Anyone can look at Lance and tell that he is a story of what happens when love is done right: when you come from a family that is together, whole and in love with life, with the world, with each other. When nothing is tainted, and everything is only as impossible as you are unwilling to reach for it. 

Keith thinks that he might have been like Lance in another life—in a life where his father never died, or maybe where his mother came back for him.

“I miss my dad,” Keith whispers, lets himself feel, for a moment, the awful pang of loneliness that passes over him whenever he thinks too long about the  _ what if _ . “But I’ve been missing him for a long time. Before Voltron. Before—a lot of things.” 

Sometimes, he feels like he’s been missing him for his whole life. He thinks about the man his father had been, someone strong and fearless, who made a life out of saving people until eventually, the only way he could do even that was to die for them. He wonders what his dad would think, if he could see him now. He wonders if his father would be ashamed of him, or if he would be devastated, or if there’s even a possibility that he would be proud Keith’s even made it this far. He aches when he thinks of how he’s never going to know. 

“Oh,” Lance says softly. It’s the first time Keith’s ever given that much, and he doesn’t look over at him because he doesn’t want to see pity or—he doesn’t know. Something he doesn’t want to see. And he waits for the inevitable  _ I’m sorry _ . But it never comes. 

Lance reaches across the floor between them, reaches for Keith’s hand. He gives it to him: figures,  _ why not?, _ because he’s already maybe said more than he should have, so maybe, by some twisted logic, that means there’s less to lose. 

And Lance says nothing, and he asks no questions; they sit with their hands held between them and watch the galaxy spin past in all of the silence of the universe. 

  
  


_____

  
  


It’s after a mission briefing where Kolivan used the phrase,  _ “Knowledge or death _ ,” apparently too many times for one of his fellow Blades’ taste, when he hears her mutter, “Like  _ knowledge _ is really what any one of us are here for.” 

And Keith really should get a better handle on his curiosity, because he can’t stop himself from asking, “What are you here for, then?” 

The Blade looks at him—hood down, eyes the unreadable, pure glowing yellow that many of the Galra here share—at first with suspicion, and then with a curiosity of her own. “My children,” she eventually says. “Are you here to truly seek knowledge, kit?” 

_ Definitely not _ , Keith thinks. What he says, though, is with no short amount of surprise, “You have children?” 

“Many of us have children.” She’s still looking at him with that peculiar expression, like she’s uncovered some previously unknown, fascinating species of bug. She asks him, “How long have you been here, kit? Have you not seen our base?” 

“The training decks. Wherever the Marmora trials take place. Here. Where else is there?” 

The Blade appears to almost smile for a moment before reassuming the stoic expression they all wear. “Find me after the mission, if you truly seek the answer to that question,” she tells him. 

The mission is just a simple intel run. It’s not nearly the amount of adrenaline Keith’s become accustomed to, but it does enough to take his mind off of the fact that where he should really be right now is home, training with his team. Home, where all of his safe spaces are beginning to dwindle more rapidly than ever. He can’t even enter the training deck without thinking of all of the reasons that have brought him there before in recent days. Without thinking of Lance’s drawn expression as he’d patched him up for the thousandth time, thinking  _ I really wish I could believe you, Keith _ . Thinking,  _ I’m sorry. _

When they arrive back at the base, Keith finds that he’s not quite ready to return to that. And he feels guilty—always so, so guilty—but it isn’t enough to move him. 

So he finds the Blade from earlier, and though she seems to not be surprised to see him again, Keith thinks they both are, a little. She tells him her name is Bez. 

“You’re that paladin of Voltron, aren’t you?” she says conversationally, as they wind down a series of corridors to the elevators. She presses the button that will take them up. “The little fiery one that the others talk about.” 

“That’s me, I guess.” Keith can feel his shoulders tensing up, pulling into himself at the idea of others talking about him.  _ Of course they talk. You’re a paladin of Voltron _ . Bez gives him another of those curious looks. She doesn’t bring up Voltron again after that. 

“Kolivan is very tight-lipped about it, but here at the Blade, we’ve created a community for ourselves,” she tells him as the elevator lets them out onto an observatory platform that circles the room below. They’re standing above a wide open floor, carpeted in training mats and crawling with, what appear to be from this distance, dozens of tiny Galra. Fighting each other with toy weapons; tumbling across the mats; climbing the rock-ridged walls with a limberness fueled by young energy. As he watches, one that looks to be on the smaller side clambers around the others, reaching the top of the wall and flipping himself over the edge onto their floor with a victorious shout. Bez smiles, more the ferocious baring of teeth that is characteristic of many of the Blades, and says, as if letting him in on a secret, “That one is mine.” 

She’s just finished speaking when the child in question notices the two of them standing there and perks up, shouts, “Ma’ka!” and jumps to his feet to bound over to them. 

“Hello, young one.” She lifts the child easily, settling him onto her shoulder and inclining her head at Keith. “This is Keith. Keith, this is Aklyit. My youngest.” 

“I’m six decaphoebs,” the child grins down at him, baby fangs poking out. Keith looks back at him, not sure why he feels so unsettled until he realizes that this is the first time he’s ever seen a Galra child. 

He’s . . . never even considered the  _ existence  _ of Galra children until this moment. He’d had no idea there were any at the Blade of Marmora. 

“Hello,” Keith says. Aklyit flashes him another grin before turning to look down at his mother, tugging her ear. “We gotta go pick up Vahnka and Talya?” 

“Yes,” she replies, “But first, go collect Iz. I believe I see him attempting his hand at the simulator. Best go stop him before he breaks it again.” 

“Yep.” Aklyit hops to the ground and runs back to the edge of the platform, flipping back onto the wall below them with the careless precision of a gymnast who’s spent their entire life mastering deadly tricks and no longer has to think about them. 

“You said, earlier, that the reason why you’re here is because of your kids,” Keith remembers, and glances up at the Galra woman. “Why? The missions are dangerous. It’s what Kolivan’s always reminding us of—we could die any time, for any reason.” 

“But here, while we live, we have life,” Bez replies, in the easy manner of one who’s weighed the risks and accepted them. “I was still living among the Empire when my mate and I conceived our first child. But it was forbidden to have children without the approval of our commanding officer—an approval we did not have. So we found the Blade, and the Blade has been good to my family. We are all family here: we look after each other, after one another’s children. We may die, but our kits are never orphans. It is a good life. Better than the alternative.” 

Keith thinks about that. He thinks about a community that takes care of one another, even though the threat of death is a constant for them all. He thinks of how his mother was once a part of this community, and wonders what ever happened to her. If there’s a chance she could still be alive. 

But if she’s alive, why hadn’t she come back for him? he wonders. He thinks:  _ our kits are never orphans _ , and his heart is heavy with  _ what if?  _

There’s no use in wondering about things you’ll never know the answer to, though.  _ There’s no point, Keith _ . 

“It does sound like a good life,” he finally says, in a voice several decibels softer than before. He wonders, for a moment, if Bez can even hear him. She does, and sends him another of those curious looks. He thinks there are probably more than a few questions hidden behind the glow of her eyes, but she doesn’t ask any of them. 

“It is,” she agrees. “I had never known what it meant to truly live for something, until I came here. Until I had a reason to.” 

Keith thinks about that—about what it must mean, to live for something. And he wonders, not for the first time, what it is that he’s living for. 

And he wonders what it means that he doesn’t have a single reason that can stand on its own. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_ “Don’t you think—don’t you think there’s any reason worth staying for?” Walking like this beside her, looking for all of the world like two relatively normal teenagers, reminds Keith of how they used to be. They were kids then, on the run and pretending that if they kept their heads down, they wouldn’t be noticed. It’s been two years since then, and they still haven’t unlearned the habit.  _

_ A lot of good it’s done them.  _

_ She’s looking off into the distance now, though, eyes fixed on the dark, receding clouds. Head lifted, long black hair flowing behind her like a cape. “I don’t know, Keith,” she tells him, the quiet sort of honesty Keith hates to hear because he knows it means he won’t be able to counter whatever she’s about to tell him. “But I’m tired. I’m tired of fighting, and losing, and hurting all the time. This is the only decision I can make that no one can take from me.”  _

_ The thing that hurts the most is probably that Keith gets it. He does. He wishes that he didn’t. “I wish . . . I do understand. But I don’t want you to go. I’ll—I’ll miss you.”  _

_ He doesn’t realize how much until he says it. It can be easy, he supposes, when you haven’t seen someone in a while, to forget how important that person’s simple existence means to you. But she means more to him than anyone else in his life. There is no one else.  _

_ It hurts that much more, then, when he realizes that this is a goodbye.  _

_ “Come with me, then.”  _

_ He stops in his tracks. She turns back to look at him. The light from the recently returned sun turns everything about her into gold, and he wishes desperately that this will be the way he remembers her: bright glowing eyes and highlighted hair. “Come with you?”  _

_ “It’ll be just like last time,” she says, her conviction visibly growing with every word. “One last adventure. We could do it together. We don’t have to keep living this way. We won’t hurt anymore.”  _

_ “I . . .” He can’t believe what she’s asking him to do. The very suggestion of it terrifies him. “I can’t. I don’t—I don’t want to do that.”  _

_ “Okay.” She can see that it upsets him; he knows by the way her face immediately changes, the way she switches tactics so quickly that, to an outsider, it might not make any sense. But because it’s them, it does. “That’s fine. That’s okay, Keith. You know I would never make you. But you understand that I am going to. It’s what I want. I’m going to.”  _

_ He wonders how she can say that without a single ounce of fear in her eyes. How she can hold her head high, no apologies or regrets to be found in her face. And he does know that there is nothing he can say that will keep her here. He’ll just make her feel more guilty.  _

_ He has to let her go.  _

_ So he only says, “Yeah. Yeah, I know that.”  _

_ She steps in close to hug him. She doesn’t hug often, and when she does, it never lasts long. But she’s the only person who’s ever really cared since his dad, and he can feel it in the subtly protective way she holds him. And she whispers: “I love you, Keith. Never forget that. You’re the only person I’ve ever loved.”  _

_ He thinks it hurts more to be reminded. But he doesn’t tell her that. She’s lived sixteen years in endless devastation, more pain than most can ever imagine. Some of that pain, he thinks, is probably his own fault. He can’t make her endure anymore. He wants her last image of him to be good. She’s the only person who  _ believes  _ he is good.  _

_ So he closes his eyes, and holds her back for as long as she will let the moment last. And he tells her, voice little more than a whisper on the nonexistent breeze: “I love you, too.”  _

  
  


_____

  
  


Sometimes, Keith thinks, the human brain doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. 

It’s strange how certain memories can become captive, locked in a holding cell but brought out again and again and again for reexamination. It’s strange how other memories are put away like insignificant files, like books that are left on high shelves in the back of your mind to collect dust and be forgotten. 

But then one day, you think of a word, or a phrase, or the way someone’s voice sounds when they talk to you. And in your mind, you have to reach far back into your memory for that faded, dusty book; you turn it over in your hands and you think:  _ how could I have forgotten about this?  _ And then you reread it once, twice, half a dozen times, and you wish that you’d left it in the back. 

When Keith returns home, it’s nighttime on the castle. When he steps out into the hangar, all of the lights are dimmed, and there’s no one waiting to greet him. 

They used to always wait. He doesn’t know if he should be relieved that they don’t anymore.

But he is relieved tonight, because he can’t be sure that he would be able to keep a handle on his emotions around any of them. Because while he’s used to controlling his anger, his anxiety, his frustration, his exhaustion—he’s not so used to handling sadness. 

Sadness is the lead-weighted blanket that he rarely ever wraps himself up in. Sadness means letting himself really _feel_ , and Keith’s feelings can only ever be associated in a negative connotation. But tonight, he is sad. He keeps thinking about what it means to lose something you never had, and what it means to lose something you _did_ have. To lose a person. To lose . . . things you can’t even put into words. 

It’s an awful feeling, but not in the way he’s used to. This isn’t crippling, heart-stopping, induced panic. This is something slow and steady, calm in the gradual way it sinks him. It’s like he’s strapped his feet into iron boots, but instead of cannonballing into the ocean, he’s wading into it inch by inch. The water isn’t even close to closing over his head yet—but it is still awful in its way, the knowledge that he is going to sink.  _ So, so heavy _ . 

It’s with heavy steps that he winds his way through the dark castle halls, head held low and eyes aching with the desire to close. But he can already feel that it’s not going to be a good night, in the same way that an amputee can sometimes feel the charged pressure in the air that comes with an oncoming storm. 

All he can think is that he just wants to sleep. To really sleep, with no dreams of the desert or ghosts from a past life that he doesn’t want to remember.  _ He just wants to sleep _ . 

He’s passing by the lounge when he hears the noise coming from inside. The holo-projector, he guesses, and is proven right when he stops in the doorway to see. The lights are on, and inside he can see that Pidge is curled up on the corner of one of the couches. She hears the door open and glances up to look, and Keith can see that her eyes are red and wet even from this distance. 

“Oh,” she says, clearing her throat as if that will distract from her tears. “Keith. You’re back.” 

“Yeah,” Keith says, in the same carefully even tone as her. “I didn’t think anyone would be up.” 

It’s a subtle invitation. Pidge shrugs. “Wanted to watch a movie,” she mutters, and shifts on the couch so that she’s somehow even more balled up than before. “I can’t sleep. My stomach hurts. A-and I can’t get up to turn off the lights.” She sniffles. 

_ Oh _ , Keith thinks. And he thinks for another moment. And finally he says, “I’ll be right back.” 

Ten minutes later, Keith’s changed into a pair of sweats, grabbed one of the heated pads from the medbay, and swung by the kitchen for the batch of _I-can’t-believe-they’re-not-real-peanut-butter_ cookies that Hunk keeps stashed away in the freezer for nights specifically like this. He cuts off the lights as he comes back in, and Pidge almost starts crying again when Keith settles down onto the couch beside her with his small assortment of items. 

“You’re the best,” she tells him in a croaky voice, and reaches for him with what appears to be the intention of giving him a hug, but then just turns into her going limp in his arms. Keith holds her, and after a while manages to reclaim one of his arms to reach behind him for one of the blankets they keep slung over the couch. He lays it over both of their laps, and is about to reach for the remote when he hears her whisper, “I want my mom.” 

He pauses, waits. Normally, with Pidge, when she’s upset it’s best to be quiet while she lets it out. Saying anything is almost a sure way to make sure she doesn’t finish what she started—and considering how little she lets herself be this vulnerable, that could definitely do a lot of harm. 

He thinks, sometimes, that he forgets—that they all forget—just how young Pidge is. She carries herself like an adult; she’s one of the paladins of Voltron; she’s a  _ soldier _ , and one of the bravest and best Keith’s ever known—but she’s also only seventeen years old. 

And it’s times like this that Keith is made starkly aware of that. Pidge, for all her bravado and intelligence, should never have been handed this life. The universe,  _ Voltron _ shouldn’t have forced it, but it did. And now Pidge is going to have to live with the consequences of that, of being made to grow up too fast, for the rest of her life. 

(It scares him sometimes, to think of the effect this is ultimately going to have on her. He tries not to.) 

“I just,” Pidge is saying now, still in that same whisper. He thinks she’s whispering because she doesn’t want him to hear her voice break. It makes his chest ache. “I  _ just _ want my mom. I know that’s probably dumb, right? I know how to live without her. And—and if I have to, I  _ can _ . But sometimes I just want her to  _ be  _ here, and tell me it’s going to be okay. I always believed her when she told me that. I want to  _ believe  _ it, even if it’s not true. That’s dumb.” 

“It’s not dumb.” Keith runs the edge of the blanket between his fingertips, feeling the ridges in the fabric from the seam. He feels Pidge beside him, burning into his ribcage and shoulder. “It’s not dumb to miss your mom or wish she was here. Just because you  _ can  _ live without someone doesn’t mean that you want to. It’s okay to miss her. That  _ is  _ okay.” 

Pidge sniffs again, but he can feel her nodding her head against his shoulder. He hears her ask, “Is there anyone you miss?” 

He wonders what it is, lately, with all of these questions surrounding him and missing things. Lance and the desert. Bez and her reminders. Pidge, and this. 

Keith thinks of his dad, for a brief moment, eyes the same color and shape of his own, and a smile that even the scorching desert sun couldn’t bleach away from him. 

And then his memories shift, and he thinks of eyes the color of the blackest cup of coffee, deeper than the darkest part of the night sky in winter. And he thinks of a face that never smiled, but was filled with a fierce protectiveness that could have destroyed or saved the world. Might have, if things had been different.  _ If only. What if?  _ And he remembers, “ _ I love you. Never forget that. _ ” 

His throat feels tight, when he finally replies to Pidge’s question. “Yeah, of course there’re people I miss. Don’t we all miss someone?” 

“Guess so. It’s just, you never talk about it. You can, you know. If you want. Whenever.”

She sounds so sincere,  _ so  _ young in that moment. Keith closes his eyes. “I know. Thanks, Pidge.” 

A little while later, they finally put on a movie. Pidge falls asleep with her head in his lap not even halfway through the Altean horror, and Keith stops paying attention sometime after that. He keeps thinking about loss and missing things, about being too young. He thinks:  _ it isn’t fair _ . 

He falls asleep to the image of stormy black eyes turned to gold and the phantom smell of petrichor on concrete. 

  
  



	3. we're looking for light inside an ocean of night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith had never had much free time to spend, back on Earth, and what free time he had, he did not spend on reading romance novels. But one thing he is almost certain of is that, were you to crack open any romantic book to any randomized page, you would find a passage describing how falling in love—or rather, the realization of falling in love—is a lot like two puzzle pieces sliding at last together, or like a symphony of melodious stringed instruments beginning to sing inside your chest like a choir of angels. You would find soft eyes and softer gestures, long walks on beaches and kisses stolen in hallways, and it would all be so terribly sweet that you would want to throw up the candy butterflies that make their homes in the branches of your ribcage. 
> 
> Now, Keith is certain of another thing. None of those things—aside, maybe, from the feeling that he is going to throw up all of his internal organs—are at all what it is like to realize that he is in love with Lance McClain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! sorry for not updating last week. i was hoping i would be able to keep on a weekly schedule, but unfortunately i'm thinking this is going to be more like an every-other-week kind of thing (at least until i get the full story finished). not going to lie, this chapter's where it really gets kind of heavy. i genuinely made myself cry towards the end, if that tells you anything. 
> 
> trigger warnings for:  
> -panic attacks  
> -allusions to a suicide attempt  
> -mentions of assault  
> (feel free to let me know if there are any you think i've missed; the feedback is important to me)
> 
> chapter title comes from chvrches "miracle"

In the back of Keith’s mind, taking up residence in a way similar to countless other ghosts, Bez’s voice quickly becomes a constant whisper. She is telling him, growing more haunting each time:  _ I had never known what it meant to truly live for something _ .  _ Until I had a reason to _ .

Another ghost is swift to join her; this one of his own creation, this one less haunting and more violent, more vicious, more  _ demanding.  _ Asking him, growing angrier each time he fails to provide an acceptable response:  _ What are your reasons? What are your  _ reasons? 

These days, he can feel himself slipping into a place that he doesn’t want to be. It’s a strange time, he thinks, something unprecedented. Since the beginning of Voltron, Keith has told himself that he’s left Earth behind, along with everything that happened on it. He’s tried to take comfort in that; with Red on his side, it was easy to. It had still been hard to think about things, but it was easier to let them go. Easier to push to the back of his brain. Easy to just be comforted by the fact that where he’s been is a place he never has to go to again. 

Out here, it’s a strange set of circumstances, because Keith knows that he  _ could  _ die at any moment. Their war against Zarkon and his empire is, in fact,  _ a war _ . They all run the risk of being hit by a fatal blast out in the empty blackness of space, or being run through with a sword in the cramped quarters of an enemy ship. It could happen at any time, in any place, and thinking about that isn’t a happy thing. It shouldn’t be any type of positive thing, and it’s  _ not _ , not even to him. But why is it that the thought of it doesn’t scare him? 

He knows that the others are afraid, even if they never say it. They are brave, but they still fear death. What they won’t voice in words is still spoken through their actions, through their feelings, through the way they carry themselves. 

For Lance, the fear is carried in a box of letters that he keeps tucked in a compartment underneath his bed. There is one for each of his family members back home, all written in his mother-tongue on strange, alien parchment (the closest he could find to Earthen paper on one of their visits to a swap moon). Keith remembers the night Lance had confessed to that box’s existence, the way his voice had dropped to a hushed whisper as he asked them if they’d be willing, were he to die before they can return, to take those letters home to his parents. Whenever Keith thinks about that conversation, the details that stand out most to him are the wobbling line of his tightly pressed lips and the white-knuckled fists in front of him on the table, clenched to keep them from trembling. 

For Pidge, the fear is more like a live wire. It’s the energy behind her fingertips flying across a keyboard; the unconscious drive keeping her here, the crippling question:  _ where is my family?  _ And more terrifying, the wonder:  _ what if I can’t find them in time? What if I’m already too late?  _ Then there is Hunk, with the anxiety he wears like a cape, with his late-night rambles of his childhood home that he spills to Keith over trays of fresh-baked brownies. He feels a lot of guilt for leaving the way he did, wonders about his parents’ health, wonders if they think he’s dead. 

Once, he had fallen into Keith and Lance’s arms out of a cryopod after taking a nasty hit in Yellow. The first thing he had said, the  _ only  _ thing he had been able to say before bursting into tears was: “ _ All I could think was that I was never going to get to see my parents again _ .” 

And there’s Shiro. Shiro, who it sometimes seems has been fighting death his whole life. They don’t talk about it—they rarely talk about anything, anymore—but he remembers a time, almost right after they came to space, he and Shiro  _ had _ talked. “ _ Sometimes I have nightmares that I really did die in that arena. Sometimes I still dream about hospital rooms and my heart monitor flat-lining. I think sometimes that being forced to relive it inside my mind is more terrible than actually going through it was. Thinking about what could have happened _ .” 

And the thing is, it’s not that Keith isn’t  _ afraid  _ of death. He doesn’t want to die. It’s just that, if he were to die, he doesn’t think he’d mind it all that much. It’s going to happen eventually anyway, right? So why not sometime soon? 

One of the big differences between Keith and the rest of his team, he thinks, is that everyone else has something to go back to. Something they’re fighting for that isn’t  _ here _ . They have lives back on the planet that birthed them: families they love, friends they miss, dreams that can’t be lived out on the sterile, cold atmosphere that the castleship can often be. And even Allura and Coran, though their home is gone, still have aspirations: Allura longs for the day when she can travel to distant planets just for the sake of  _ visiting  _ the planet, instead of having to fight for it every moment of the time she is there. Coran wants to retire to the planet Hylei and paint all of its beaches and crystal oceans. 

But for Keith, there is nowhere to go home to, and there is nothing to hope for. In his loneliest, most desperate moments, sometimes he’ll let himself think about what he would want, if he could have anything in the universe. What he wants, above all else, is to be  _ free _ . 

In the most honest, aching part of his soul dwells the desire to live a single day without the guilt that claws relentlessly at his heart, without the memories that won’t leave his head, without the unerasable scars on his body and the voice that tells him, again and again:  _ you will never be able to escape me _ . He wants to be  _ happy _ . But even if they defeat the Empire, even if someday they are able to go on and live their lives however they want, he can’t envision a single future where he gets to have that. It’s an impossibility that stretches beyond beating Zarkon. It’s a life that was  _ taken  _ from him before he could even grasp what happiness or freedom  _ meant _ . Now, all he has are faded, fragmented snapshots. And he has to live with the knowledge that they’re all he’s ever going to have. 

In those lonely, desperate moments, though, there lives a single other wish. It’s the one thing he wants that he believes might be achievable; the only desire that might fit with the weighted suspicion that of all of his friends and all of their fears of death, he is going to be the first one to die. 

Keith just wants to lay down, close his eyes, and never need to open them again. He wants, for one endless, black velvet and starless night, to sleep without dreaming.   
  


_____

  
  


_ “Mierda, _ Keith, I’m pretty sure your wrist is broken.” The medbay again; Lance fretting over him, again. It’s so late in the night that Keith wouldn’t be able to take a guess at what hour it is, and he is so tired.  _ He is so tired _ . 

“I’m going to have to set this, dude. And then you have to go in a pod. How did this even happen?” 

“Can’t remember,” Keith mutters. The scary thing is he’s telling the truth. He remembers punching in the code to start the simulation, remembers the  _ slick _ ing sound his bayard made as it elongated into its sword form. But he doesn’t remember the fight; doesn’t remember if he fell on his wrist or if the gladiator snapped it or whatever else. He just remembers Lance finding him on the floor, the amount of alarm in his friend’s voice and the way it had sparked white-hot, hostile  _ shame  _ that had flooded his entire being. 

He can’t imagine how pathetic he must look right now. He feels like he’s hungover: the aftermath of getting drunk on virgin agony and self-hatred, his poison of choice.  _ Ha _ . Lance is always going on about how Keith can’t be witty. He thinks if he were to say that out loud, Lance would probably ask him to never try to utilize wit ever again. That is, of course, if he even understood what Keith was implying. 

Keith would hope that he wouldn’t. But he won’t take the chance. 

“Listen, I’m going to have to take off your glove to do this. I know you have a thing about it, but—” 

_ “No.”  _ The panic is as instantaneous as a lit match being flung onto a trail of gasoline. It’s not something they  _ ever  _ talk about—Keith’s “thing” when it comes to his fingerless leather gloves—but it’s a universal fact that the gloves don’t come off when people are around. It’s another one of those don’t-ask, don’t-tell situations. Keith can barely bring himself to remove them long enough to shower, some days. Just the thought of taking them off right now sets off a firework of horror in his brain. 

He can’t hold back the snarl that tears from his throat as he rips his arm away from Lance’s grip, ignoring the sheet of  _ fire  _ that descends over his vision for a good few seconds, and cradles it to his chest. “ _ Don’t _ touch me. It’s fine, Lance. I don’t—I don’t  _ need _ —” 

“It is not _fine_ ,” Lance snaps back, a fire of his own flaming up in his normally cool blue eyes as he stares him down. “I’m getting fucking sick and tired of you saying that all the time. I don’t know _what_ is going on with you, but every single time I see you lately, you look worse. You keep saying you’re _fine_ but you look like you’re _dying._ The others are too afraid to say anything because they’re worried they’re going to somehow make it worse, and they’re trying to give you space because they think that’s what you need, but you want to know what _I_ think? I think there’s something inside of you that’s _tearing_ _you apart_. And I think you keep running off to the Blade because—I don’t know, you think you can fight off your problems with your fists, or you want some half-assed excuse for when you end up _killing yourself_ , or—” 

“Stop,” Keith says, abrupt, as the fight drains out of him at once. Within seconds, all that is left is the panic that still flutters in his veins, a bird with its wings cut off. “Lance—” 

“ _ No _ ,” Lance replies with adamant conviction, conviction that could  _ cut _ , “You  _ need  _ to hear this. There are people who love you, Keith, people who care  _ so much _ about what happens to you. You can’t keep  _ doing  _ this, you’re  _ hurting  _ yourself, and when you do you aren’t the only person you’re affecting. You’re hurting  _ us  _ too—” 

“ _ Lance _ ,” Keith says again, but this time it’s a whisper. A barely vocalized plea. It’s so hard to draw in air, and his throat feels tight, and his eyes are too hot and he just needs Lance to stop  _ talking _ , he can’t  _ breathe _ . And he’s not sure what it is Lance hears,  _ how  _ he hears him at all, but it stops him right in the middle of his diatribe. 

“Wh—oh. Oh,  _ shit _ . Keith, I’m sorry, no—no I didn’t mean to—” It’s like flipping a switch: all of Lance’s anger turns off, putting itself away. It’s replaced by alarm, by guilt-tinged worry, and then by even those emotions smoothing away until all that remains is something calm and practiced. 

“Okay, I get that you probably don’t want to listen to me right now, but you’ve gotta breathe. So we’re going to breathe now, okay? And count. I need you to count with me. Can you nod if you understand me?” 

Keith squeezes his eyes shut, takes in choked lungfuls of air. Trying, around the block that’s set up a barricade between his lungs and his throat. Barely, he manages to bow his head in a half-completed imitation of a nod. Lance takes it as the assent it is, his voice beginning to fill the empty medbay with a series of alternating counted breaths, reaching Keith’s ears through a paper screen. 

Lance counts and breathes, counts and breathes; after a while that could be—for all Keith is lucid enough to know—a few minutes and could be a few eternities, he finds that it becomes easier to listen to him, easier to follow. He’s shaking by the end of it like he’s just run a marathon, strained fatigue burning in every limb, and Lance is standing within arms reach but no closer: there if he wants him, but not forcing himself into his space. For a moment, Keith deludes himself into thinking that Lance  _ knows _ , and he fears that the panic is going to flare up again. 

But it doesn’t. He closes his eyes again so that he’s not looking at him; he breathes, and he breathes. The progression is slow, but finally he is able to get a steady hand back on his breathing. And in the tense moments right after, a charged silence fills the medbay. It can be felt in the energy surrounding him and Lance; can be felt like the ache in his lungs from overexertion; can be felt like the twinge in his broken wrist. 

And it is not broken until Lance speaks again, voice lowered but not enough to disguise its audible wavering. “Keith, I . . . I’m  _ sorry _ . I didn’t mean to—to make you upset like that. I let my emotions get away from me, and I shouldn’t have. I’m an asshole.” 

Keith doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing he  _ can  _ say. He’s curved in on himself, elbow on his knee, head down so that Lance can’t see him trying to stop his crying.  _ Stop it. Crying is for people who deserve it. You don’t get to cry _ . 

“You know,” Lance goes on after another tense, silent minute. “Whenever I’d do something to upset my niece and nephew back on Earth, my way of apologizing—you know, after  _ actually _ apologizing—was letting them call me whatever they wanted and promising not to get upset about it. I got called  _ poophead  _ and  _ stupidface  _ quite a few times. Harsh insults, coming from five-year-olds. Anyway . . . if there’s something you want to say—if you want to yell at me or, I don’t know, call me an insensitive douchebag, you can. I  _ am  _ an insensitive douchebag. I shouldn’t have acted like—I shouldn’t have said things that way. It was wrong." 

The corner of Keith’s lip quirks, like there’s some tiny part of him that finds this funny, but he doesn’t have enough energy left in his body to spend on the action. “Doesn’t having your permission take away from the satisfaction?” 

“I don’t know. You tell me.” Lance’s voice is still so careful. So genuine, too. And Keith knows, deep beneath his instinctive reaction, that Lance didn’t mean anything harmful when he lashed out. Lance isn’t the type to hurt like that on purpose. 

He keeps his head lowered, and his eyes closed. He thinks—knows—he hasn’t been very fair to Lance, lately. Lance is always so honest with him. Lance is always  _ good  _ to him, and kind, even when Keith doesn’t deserve it. In retrospect, this outburst was a long time coming. And maybe that’s not an excuse for the things he said, but Lance  _ doesn’t  _ understand. It’s not fair to punish him as if he did. 

Keith looks off to the side, extending his wrist again but not wanting to see. “Just set it,” he whispers, knowing full well what he’s giving Lance permission to do. Ignoring the gravity of it, because if he lets himself acknowledge it, then he’s going to lose the modicum of courage he’s holding on to. “Just do it—so I can go in the pod, and then to sleep. I’m tired, Lance.” 

For a long moment, his wrist just hovers on empty air. And then, slowly, carefully, he feels Lance’s hand gently circle around his wrist, pulling it closer to himself. He closes his eyes when he hears the sound of velcro ripping, and then his skin is exposed between them. Lance is so silent that he can’t even be sure he’s breathing, now. 

“I’m going to set it on three,” he finally says. There’s something in his voice that tempts Keith to look, just so he can figure out what it is—but he doesn’t. He bites his lip and nods. 

Lance counts, and on  _ three  _ the world goes a bright, blinding shade of white. Keith presses his lips together so he won’t scream, but he thinks he makes some noise of discomfort because Lance mutters, “I know, I’m sorry.” When it ends they sit there, Lance’s hands still on his, and Keith opens his eyes and looks down. Aside from the already-purpling bruises blooming from the break, his wrist looks the same as it had before he’d entered the training deck earlier in the night—right down to the single, incriminating line of raised, paler tissue that bisects his skin. 

Keith bites his lip again, and then he says in a rough voice, “Hey, Lance?” 

“Yeah?” Lance answers, soft. Nothing like before. He doesn’t have any anger left. 

Somewhere, he finds that he has the energy after all. He glances up at Lance, mouth quirking in the universe’s weakest smile, and tells him, “You’re an insensitive douchebag.” 

Lance’s eyes are watery, lashes clumping at the corners. He looks so  _ sorry  _ that it hurts to look at, but Keith doesn’t look away. After a moment, his friend gives him this wobbly imitation of a smile. “I know,” he says, voice cracking. 

“But it’s okay.” Keith holds his gaze so that Lance will  _ know _ . “It’s okay. You didn’t know. So don’t . . . don’t beat yourself up about it. I know you do that.” 

“I make no promises,” Lance says. He applies the slightest of pressures to Keith’s skin with his fingertips, the closest he’s willing to chance to squeezing his hand right now. “But I’ll try.” 

Lance helps Keith into one of the cryopods, hands steady where he touches him; fingertips pressing into his shoulder here, curling into the hand of his uninjured wrist, there. Keith is hyper-aware of every place that he lingers, feeling the warmth of him even through the fabric of the cryosuit. He closes his eyes the moment that the capsule’s icy cool reaches him. The last thing he sees is the blue of Lance’s eyes, absorbing all of the cold color in this room and turning it into something electrically warm. 

When he comes out, they’re also the first thing he sees. Lance keeps him from face planting, arms carefully circling around his waist to stabilize him, and Keith feels an unfamiliar prickle of surprise. “You stayed?” he says. 

He realizes as soon as the question leaves his mouth that he shouldn’t be surprised. The sentiment is mirrored in the quirk of Lance’s eyebrows in the half-second before he says, “Of course I did.” 

Lance doesn’t say anything else on the walk back to their rooms, until they’re standing in the hall outside Keith’s door and he’s reaching to press the button to open it. “Wait.”

Keith pauses, turns back to look at him. There’s a subtle pensiveness in Lance’s face, a certain determination in the way he reaches out to take Keith’s hand, how he looks down as he links their fingers, and then back up again into Keith’s eyes. 

“Next time,” Lance says, and when his voice comes out too hoarse, he clears it before trying again. “Next time you have a night where you feel like—like the only place you can go is the training deck. Don’t. Come find me instead. Even if I’m sleeping, I’d rather you wake me up than . . . than you be alone. If you really want a fight, we’ll go together, but I just—I don’t want you to do this anymore. Please don’t do this anymore, Keith. Not without anyone knowing where you are, at least.” 

Keith looks down at their hands between them, Lance’s palm pressed softly against his re-gloved one. And he nods once—maybe not the promise Lance wants, but the only one he can give. 

“I make no promises,” he mimics Lance’s words from earlier; in his mouth they feel hollow, but he wants them to be true—doesn’t want to lie any more than he has to: “but . . . I’ll try.” 

“Good.” He looks up to find Lance looking at him with a conflicted expression, as if there’s a war going on behind his eyes that Keith can’t see. After a moment Lance nods, one side evidently winning out over the other, and he leans close into Keith’s space to press a gentle, warm kiss to his forehead. Later, Keith will compare it to the desert sun early in the morning, to the ocean sun that Lance must compare warmth to, but in reality, it’s warmer than both. 

“Goodnight, Keith,” he whispers against his skin, and Keith closes his eyes for a moment to let himself feel it.  _ It:  _ a recognition, of sorts, of something that Keith has never experienced before. But it’s the sort of something that, once you have experienced it, becomes unmistakable. The recognition that is accompanied by the single thought:  _ oh. This is what it’s supposed to be like. This is really it, isn’t it?  _

“Goodnight, Lance,” he whispers back. And he wonders, for a softly hopeful, fleeting moment, if Lance feels it too. But then he squashes that thought where it stands, douses it like a barely-lit candle.  _ Dangerous thoughts,  _ he thinks.  _ A risk you can’t afford to take.  _

He turns away from Lance before he can do something foolish, like work up the nerve to ask him. Or do something that he would regret even more, later. And as he disappears into his room, he can’t spare a single glance behind him to catch the look in Lance’s eyes as he watches him slip away. He’s too scared of what he would find there. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith had never had much free time to spend, back on Earth, and what free time he had, he did not spend on reading romance novels. But one thing he is almost certain of is that, were you to crack open any romantic book to any randomized page, you would find a passage describing how falling in love—or rather, the realization of falling in love—is a lot like two puzzle pieces sliding at last together, or like a symphony of melodious stringed instruments beginning to sing inside your chest like a choir of angels. You would find soft eyes and softer gestures, long walks on beaches and kisses stolen in hallways, and it would all be so terribly sweet that you would want to throw up the candy butterflies that make their homes in the branches of your ribcage. 

Now, Keith is certain of another thing. None of those things—aside, maybe, from the feeling that he is going to throw up all of his internal organs—are at all what it is like to realize that he is in love with Lance McClain. 

If Keith had to describe his immediate state upon reaching this conclusion, he would paint the opening visualization of a motorbike driving along at a very reasonable speed. He is on the bike, cruising along a winding mountain road with Lance behind him and a cloud of dust kicking up to create cloud across his vision. And everything is good, and everything is fine, and they are two friends simply taking a drive up some nameless mountain simply because they want to, and friends do that, and there is no need to look any further because that is all there is. 

And then, with no forewarning to be found at all, be it in the gravel and dirt below him or in the cloudless blue above, Keith loses control of the bike. It begins to accelerate, speed increasing to a level that even he isn’t comfortable with on a twisting road like this, when there are cliffs on either side of them and the possibility of dropping off and falling to his death. It’s not just his death he’s worried about: there is Lance, too. Except, Lance is no longer behind him on the bike. He’s just  _ gone _ . And Keith is rapidly reaching the edge of the curve, and when he jerks the handles the bike does not turn in the direction he needs it to, but rather continues onward as if it has no clue that it is driving to its demise. In the precise moment that the front wheel of the bike crosses the threshold from stable ground to empty, gravity-ruled air, Keith has the sudden and terrible revelation that the air is not empty at all. It is Lance. The  _ cliff  _ is Lance. And he is falling, falling into him, with this pounding fear in his chest and not a single hint in the atmosphere around him to suggest when he will finally hit the ground and it will all be over. It’s just an endless drop into nothing for as far as he can see:  _ falling, falling, falling _ . . . 

The most terrible thing about it, he thinks, is not the unexpected shock of drawing this conclusion, of acknowledging that these feelings exist. It’s coming face to face with the glaring fact that this has been building up  _ all this time _ . All this time, Keith has been falling in love with Lance, and he didn’t have a single clue. And all of this time, he thinks, Lance’s feelings for him have been building, too. He’s not bold or brash enough to assume that they’re on quite the same page, yet, but he thinks that it’s where they’re both headed. This whole time, this is where they’ve been heading. 

The worst part of it is the subtlety. He feels as if he’s been blindsided when the truth is that he was just  _ blind.  _ He feels caught off-guard, betrayed by his own mind, but the truth is that he’s just been ignoring what’s been in front of him all along. 

There’s a part of him that knows he can’t be entirely faulted for missing it. On top of the fact that his head isn’t currently in the place to analyze whether or not all of his relationships are strictly platonic, Keith had never bothered to learn how to read the signs. What was the point, when they’ve all been graffiti’d over, bashed in, beaten down into the ditch on the side of the road, anyway? 

But even Keith, while he’s proven to not be the best judge of character many times over, isn’t completely inept. And he  _ isn’t  _ blind; all it takes is for him to finally open his eyes. And there it all is: all of that subtlety suddenly spilling out onto something ineffably  _ more _ . It’s there enough that once he sees it, he knows he will never be able to unsee it. 

It’s there in the way Lance and he have always orbited around each other differently from the others, even from the beginning. Maybe that could just be attributed to the fact that their friendship had a more rocky beginning than everyone else’s—it goes without needing to be said that they are never going to be like Lance and Hunk’s unshakeable natural balance, or Keith and Shiro’s eternal trust exercise of a relationship—but having a less natural origin doesn’t account for the easy way they speak to each other in the late hours of the night, when none of their words can be lost to the silence and they have no desire to take any of them back. For the way they know how to push every one of the other’s wrong buttons, but they both choose to accept and embrace their differences instead. (Because they’ve both learned the things that make them different are the things that make them stronger, together.) 

It’s there in the way that Lance can be so profoundly pissed that he doesn’t even want to _look_ at him, but he’s still always there to pick Keith’s battered form up from the training deck floor and drag him to the medbay. It’s there in the way he held his hand when Keith told him about his dad; there in the way he (usually) knows what to say and what not to say. It’s there in the way he can admit when he’s wrong, the way it always feels like they’re _building_ something, rather than tearing each other apart. 

It’s there in: “ _ Even if I’m sleeping, I’d rather you wake me up than you be alone. If you really want a fight, we’ll go together.”  _ It’s there in midnight blue eyes. In a featherlight kiss that holds all the warmth of the sun without the accessory burn. 

And now that he knows that it’s there, he can’t ignore it. His mind won’t let him. He replays old conversations and thinks about everything that’s happened between them lately and he  _ knows,  _ in some deep part of him that has never been more sure about anything else. He isn’t crazy. This isn’t something he’s making up. There is something undeniably real here, in this space between him and Lance. 

And he wishes, with an ache that ebbs up from his core and flows through every thought and memory associated with the Blue Paladin, that he could unsee it. 

He thinks that what hurts most about it is that he can see how  _ good  _ they could be together. Because he knows that if he could have anyone within this universe or any other, there isn’t a single shred of his being that wouldn’t choose Lance over all the rest. There  _ are  _ no others. Lance is one of the best friends Keith has ever had in his life; he has been loyal during times when Keith was  _ sure  _ he would get up and walk away. When Keith was first sliding on the mantle of leadership in Shiro’s absence, Lance was the one who kept him from buckling beneath the weight. He has, in the very  _ literal  _ sense of the phrase, saved Keith’s life more times than he can count. And the cherry on top of all of that—as if all of that wasn’t already  _ enough— _ Lance is a  _ kind  _ person. He is infallibly nice; generous even to the point of personal suffering at another’s expense. Lance may be a soldier, but he values life above all else. It’s what he fights for. He’s the kind of person who cries when he accidentally steps on a bug. He’s the kind of person who is just, for lack of any better-fitting adjective,  _ warm  _ to be around. When he looks at you, it’s the feeling of gentle sunlight on your face. You don’t want to be anywhere else but with him. 

Keith knows without having to be persuaded that Lance is nothing like any of the people he has ever found himself ensnared by before. Lance is  _ nothing  _ like them. 

And so he thinks about him, about  _ them _ , the possibility. And he  _ aches  _ with how much he wants it, and he is sure that he has never wanted anything in the same way that he wants for Lance to love him. And he thinks, almost to the point of obsession, about how in another life, he  _ could  _ be loved by Lance. He could let himself be with Lance. He could be  _ happy  _ with Lance, and all of those other things that he has wanted so badly for so long. With Lance, he is  _ sure,  _ he could be free. 

That’s why it always hits so hard, when he forces himself down from the rafters and back onto the ground, where truth catches him with cold, sobering gravity. 

The truth is this: this is not another life. In this reality, someone as good and golden as Lance doesn’t deserve someone like Keith. He deserves better,  _ more _ , someone who can match his brilliant light with a twin star of their own. Someone who will be able to love him in all of the ways he deserves, with none of the cloudy darkness Keith would inevitably bring. 

Keith can’t be selfish enough to drag him down just because he thinks they could be  _ happy _ together. The single thought of it makes him feel sick with guilt, with self-directed disgust. And yet, he can’t stop  _ thinking _ . 

_ Wouldn’t it be nice?  _ He closes his eyes and imagines holding Lance’s hand whenever he wants. He remembers the feeling of Lance kissing him goodnight and thinks he wouldn’t mind if he  _ really  _ kissed him. If he held him close. If he never let him go, never gave him back to the universe filled with violent words and more horrific actions, the terrors some people prescribe to passion but aren’t, they  _ aren’t _ . If Lance could help him forget, could erase every hand that ever touched him before. 

_ Wouldn’t it be nice?  _

And he wants to give in. When it asks, he wants nothing more than to say  _ yes, I can think of nothing that would be nicer. Yes, I want it. Yes, please, just help me hold onto this one thing. This one thing, and I will never ask for anything else.  _

But just when he is beginning to fracture, when the slimmest rays of hope are beginning to shine their way through the cracks in his soul, the voice that never truly dies resurrects once again. He is the one who reminds Keith of all of the reasons why he shouldn’t reach for Lance. He is the one who reminds Keith why he  _ can’t _ . 

And his voice is a whisper of the undead, a siren calling from a graveyard once all of its allure has been stripped away, leaving only its hideous skeletal frame and sharpened teeth that could rip the skin from your bones. Keith has known for a long time the true image behind that voice, but it’s too late to escape it. The song’s engraved in his mind like a signature. Some things, he knows, will never be able to be erased. And his voice sings, a reminder, a warning, a death threat. It sings and sings: 

_ Did you really think you could get away from me that easily?  _

_ Did you really think I’d ever let you go?  _

  
  


_____

  
  


In his mind, the memory of him is not clean, put together, able to be tucked away into boxes that Keith can choose not to look into whenever he wants. He’s a jagged maze of broken trains of thought, dizzying to his synapses and the parts of Keith’s brain that don’t know  _ where  _ he should go. So when the memory of him surfaces, it is not just when he is with Lance. It is not just a whisper reminding him why he cannot have Lance. It is the reminder why, in the end, he does not deserve  _ anything _ . And in the end, it tells him, with his sadistic curving smile that Keith wouldn’t be able to forget even if he took a bottle of bleach to the tangle of wires that he occupies, he is going to lose everything. 

It figures, Keith finds himself musing on the days when he is just fed enough to not lie down and  _ take it _ , that he could leave an entire planet and still not be able to get away from him. Not really. Being Red’s paladin was only a temporary vacation from the person who took his already wrecked life and turned it into a complete dumpster fire. It was never going to be able to last. He should have known.  _ He  _ never stayed away easily. 

And Keith has tried for so long, even just in his internal thoughts, not to think of  _ him  _ as a specific entity. But recently, with how loud his voice is growing lately, it’s becoming impossible. Because he is  _ so  _ loud—louder than all of the others. Because he is everywhere. 

He is the phantom on the training deck with Keith in the late hours of the night, the distraction in his ear taking cruel pleasure in watching Keith scramble, losing count of what training sequence he’s on for the ninth time in the night, the insanity that drives Keith into starting over, from the very beginning, each time. It’s endless—each time he thinks he’ll never be able to finish, never be able to  _ stop fighting _ —and each time Keith feels himself losing another fingertip’s grip on reality, and then he finds himself bleeding on the floor. And he is the ghost that stands over him, green the only color in his bleached apparition, cool hands gripping tightly at Keith’s jaw to remind him:  _ “You will never be strong enough.”  _

He’s the devil on his shoulder at meals, the one that hovers at his shoulder and with a snap of his fingers can freeze Keith’s ability to lift his fork. Saying, “ _ You need to eat more. You know I hate how thin you are.”  _ Churning up the silty nausea in his stomach until he  _ can’t, _ he  _ can’t,  _ and the fork clatters onto his plate with a soft clink that reverberates like a gunshot in his ears. 

In Keith’s dreams of the desert, he is the hand that most regularly muffles his scream. He’s the reason why Keith can never get  _ clean _ , even when he scrubs and  _ scrubs  _ until his skin physically burns from it and he thinks it’s about to peel away and expose his bones and web of veins beneath. And maybe he is not the only reason for the guilt, for the ugly shame that resides along Keith’s insides and lives coiled like a viper around his throat, but he  _ is  _ the reason why Keith can’t bear to look at his own wrists for more than a few moments at any given time without wanting to be sick. He is engraved, in the  _ literal  _ sense of the word, on Keith’s body. And he wonders how there was ever any part of him that could be deluded into believing forgetting was possible, when the cruelest reminder of his existence can only be covered by a flimsy barrier of fabric. 

Sometimes—quite possibly the very worst thing—it’s almost like Keith can  _ see  _ him there. The lines blur between the physical and spiritual until the apparition filling up the corners of his vision ceases to be an apparition, but because real flesh and blood. He’s like a living presence in these moments, and Keith’s lungs seize in panic as he thinks:  _ he found me, how did he find me, it’s supposed to be  _ over—

Only to turn and find nothing but empty space behind him. 

He makes Keith feel like he’s as young as when he first met him. Makes him feel like he’s going insane, and sometimes, Keith is  _ sure  _ that he is. Because of him, Keith can’t eat, and he can’t sleep, and he can’t  _ fight.  _ He is exactly in the same state he had been by fourteen, destroyed and delirious enough from the unceasing terror and anguish to be willing to do anything, try  _ anything  _ to make it end. 

On one of his more lucid nights, Keith recalls what Shiro had once said about the arena. “ _ I think sometimes that being forced to relive it inside my mind is more terrible than actually going through it was.”  _ And he thinks that Shiro didn’t have it quite right. It’s not quite like being forced to relive it. It’s like it never ended in the first place. 

It is not a morning after one of his more lucid nights that the call from Kolivan comes. Walking onto the bridge this morning, he hadn’t paid much mind to his appearance, but he knows it must be worse than he thought because as soon as the Blade leader gets a good look at him, he almost rescinds the assignment from him. But Keith cuts him off before he can finish making the suggestion that perhaps he is too  _ unwell  _ to go on the mission. 

“I’m coming,” he says, and hits the  _ end call  _ button with probably more force than is necessary. He feels like he isn’t quite all-here, like some force outside of himself is controlling his actions while he just tries to keep his emotions from collapsing in on him. He has the misfortunate timing of  _ everyone  _ being present on the bridge when the call comes in, so he has to deal with shoving away every one of their voiced concerns before he can even go change into his Blade uniform. 

“Keith, I think you should stay home,” Shiro is the only one who’s brave enough to say it, but he can see in their faces that everyone agrees with him, so he just doesn’t look. And isn’t that his solution to everything? Ignoring the things he doesn’t want to see. 

So why is it, he wonders, that when it really  _ matters,  _ his brain won’t get with the program? 

“It doesn’t  _ matter _ what you think. It’s my decision, Shiro. I’m not fourteen, I’m a fucking  _ adult _ .” And he’s not sure if it’s the sheer venom in his voice or the fact that it’s directed specifically at  _ Shiro, _ but everyone goes deathly silent while he glares at his brother with enough acid to disintegrate any other protests.  _ I dare you,  _ he thinks, and  _ hopes  _ he can see how much he means it. _ I  _ dare you _ to try and keep me here.  _

Shiro holds the gaze with an unwavering steadiness, though there is a sort of subdued sadness that comes over his face that Keith doesn’t particularly care to try and analyze in the moment. He wants to go. He  _ needs  _ to be somewhere else.  _ Anywhere  _ else, where the shadows can’t play with his vision and make him feel like he’s being cornered. 

“Fine,” Shiro says, and Pidge makes a sound of protest. “ _ Shiro _ —” 

“Let him go,” his brother says evenly, not looking away from Keith for a moment. “We can’t stop him.” 

Keith doesn’t bother to stick around to defend himself any longer after that. He tells himself that he  _ doesn’t need to _ . He can make his own decisions.  _ No one,  _ not even his teammates, can take that from him.

When he arrives at the hangar, though, he finds that Lance has beaten him there. He’s leaning against the closed door, expression drawn in tense concern as he looks up to meet him. “Keith—” 

“Get out of my way, Lance.” Keith doesn’t have the inner reserves to put up with another fight on top of everything else. 

“Keith,” Lance tries again. He lifts one of his hands like he’s about to reach for him, and Keith’s mind turns to harsh, grating static. 

“ _ Don’t  _ touch me,” he snarls, and it’s almost a mirror scene of however many days ago—Keith doesn’t bother counting anymore—in the medbay, except this time it’s about a million times worse. He had thought things were bad then, but  _ nothing  _ is worse than this feeling. It’s the sensation where he can’t stand to be inside his own  _ body _ , like everything is too tight and too much and he  _ just  _ wants to escape, and he just wants to be  _ alone _ ,  _ why _ does no one ever just leave him  _ alone— _

He sees hurt flash in Lance’s eyes and almost,  _ almost _ wants to take it back. But then resignation replaces the grief, an expression not of a friend but of a paladin, and he steps aside. 

“I just wish you’d  _ talk  _ to me, Keith,” he says, the words bleeding with quiet sorrow. “Running away when things are hard isn’t going to make them better. I know you think it’s the only option, but it’s  _ not _ . Why do you keep pushing us out? You don’t have to be alone. You  _ aren’t  _ alone.” 

_ You don’t have to be alone _ . Keith shoves down the anguish rising in his throat, bites out, “Don’t you get it by now? I am  _ always  _ going to be alone. That isn’t something you or any of the others can fix. You are  _ never  _ going to understand.” He says it like a promise; that’s what it is. Lance is never going to know. Pidge, and Allura, and Hunk—none of them will  _ ever know _ . Not as long as he has any say in it. 

Maybe, in the end, they’re all going to hate him for the secrets he’s kept. Maybe when he’s gone, they’ll talk about him with resentment, because they’ll never know what it was that sent him over the edge. All of them but Shiro. And even then, he trusts that his brother will carry all of the answers to his own grave. In the end, they’ll all be better for it. 

He’d rather them hate him for never knowing. It’s better than the alternative. 

  
  


_____

  
  


It wouldn’t take a psychic to predict that Keith nearly botches the mission. And yet, he still convinces himself that everything is going to be fine. 

The undertaking is intense, one far more serious than their usual trade route intel grabs. If their source is to be trusted, somewhere on this ship there’s information on Lotor’s plans. They haven’t heard anything about Zarkon’s son in months, so it’s about time they turn up  _ something _ . The problem is that this is a heavily-guarded ship, with living sentinels posted in the halls instead of programmed droids. If one of them slips even an inch from the shadows, it could cost their entire team. 

Normally Keith is able to hold his focus during missions in the way he’s no longer able to during simple training. The adrenaline always runs high, flooding his veins with anticipation rather than the fear that normally lethargizes him. That’s the rush that keeps him alert, that helps him remember exactly where every guard is, that keeps his footsteps steady and his breathing even. 

That adrenaline is notably missing on this mission, and its absence is screwing with him. Not that he’s not keeping it under wraps, because he  _ is— _ at least at first. It’s the usual voices in his head, the words and adjoining images, trying to break through like flashback scenes from a poorly cut-together movie. And it’s true that those things  _ are  _ always there: it’s just that this time, there’s nothing to hold them at bay, so he’s having to put extra willpower pushing them back 

He’s able to keep his grip the entire way to the control center, weaving through the dark crevices of the corridors behind Bez, slipping into the room directly on her heels. With the Blade, they don’t incapacitate unless absolutely necessary—simply because  _ incapacitation  _ means death to the Blade, because having their operation found out by the Empire is not an option, and killing just means the risk of running into even more guards when they inevitably come to check up on their unresponsive fellow soldiers. But sometimes it’s unavoidable: Keith notes the two guards at the control monitors at the front of the room opposite them, one on either side; he makes eye contact with Bez, who nods an affirmative. She goes right. He goes left. 

It should have been easy, simple, painless. On a normal mission, it  _ would  _ be. He’s perfectly silent, sword raised and ready as he approaches with carefully measured out steps. He’s less than a meter away when he makes the mistake of glancing to the side to check on Bez’s position—poised, a mirror of himself—when the Galra in front of him senses him. 

In hindsight, when he will replay this moment from a thousand different perspectives, he’ll know that he could have reacted. He  _ could have  _ been fast enough to strike, to run him through with his blade,  _ something _ . But instead, when the tall Galra whirls around on him, automatically lashing out to pin Keith to the wall by his neck, all of Keith’s fighter instincts abandon him as sheer, indescribable  _ panic  _ lurches throughout his body. All coherent thought flees and what replaces it is an ancient but familiar hysterical, cold  _ dread _ and a looping strand of:  _ no, please no, please not again please,  _ please—

The weight is removed from him within mere seconds; Bez yanks the guard away in a fluid motion to run her blade through his back. She lets his limp form collaspe to the ground at her feet and looks over him to Keith, at first with complete bewilderment, and then with rising alarm. But by this point, Keith is barely present enough to notice it, let alone address it. 

He’s fallen into one of the many pockets of his mind, trapped in the repeating sensation of his back hitting the wall, lost in the sound of the force of it. And he can already feel the bruises forming around his neck from the Galra’s grip, a swelling noose tattooing across his skin, and now that phantom that always haunts is entirely manifested in front of him, so real that you wouldn’t be able to convince him that he  _ isn’t,  _ so heavy that Keith can feel the pressure on his lungs forcing him down, choking off his air supply. Saying,  _ snarling— _

_ “You’re mine, Keith. Don’t forget who you belong to.”  _

“ _ I—I didn’t _ .” Keith can’t  _ breathe _ . He can feel his hands on his neck, pinning his wrists—he can’t  _ move— _ he can’t tell what is up or down or  _ out,  _ he just wants to be  _ out,  _ to run as far and as fast as he can, but he  _ can’t.  _ “I’m sorry, I— _ I—” _

_ How could you even look at him? How could you  _ do  _ that to me, Keith? Why do you have to make me do this?  _

And then, “Blade,” he hears, something muffled and incongruous with the images flying up before Keith’s eyes. Something far away, something  _ away,  _ and his mind doesn’t spare a moment’s hesitation before snagging onto it. He doesn’t care  _ what  _ it is, just that it is not  _ here.  _ “ _ Kit,  _ calm yourself. It is alright. It is alright. You must breathe.” And he feels a slight pressure being applied to his hands—that  _ aren’t  _ pinned above him, he is slow to realize, blinking pinpricks of shadows and sparks out of his eyes—the smooth pads of gentle fingertips. When her voice comes again, it’s easier to distinguish, to separate the past from the present. “ _ Breathe,  _ kit.” 

Painfully, as if he’s inhaling tiny daggers instead of air particles, Keith listens to the Galra woman. He focuses on the pressure of her hands, the urgent tones of her voice coaxing him into swallowing lungfuls of oxygen. In some distant, aware part of his brain, he is recalling how it had only been a short while ago that it had been Lance talking him down, Lance’s voice in his ears, Lance’s gentle hands circling his wrists. 

And Keith wonders, not for the first time and not for the last, how it is that he’s spiraled so drastically out of control so rapidly. 

“Come on,” Bez says, only moments after Keith relearns how to exhale without sounding as if his lungs are collapsing like a condemned building. “We must go,” she tells him. It is at once a reminder of their location and a realization of Keith’s grave, unforgivable error. He knows immediately that he should feel guilty, terrible, knows his very first thought should be the question of if they were able to gather the information or if he ruined it. But all he has the strength to do is nod his understanding. He feels empty, like everything inside of him has been scraped raw until there’s nothing left. It pounds in his head, in his heart:  _ there is nothing, there is nothing, there is nothing.  _

He doesn’t remember much about the trip back out of the ship, or the ride back to the base: only snapshots. The ghost of Bez’s arm crossed firmly over his shoulder, bearing more of his weight than she should have to as she hauls him down the corridors. The overwhelming  _ dirtiness  _ that crawls up from the depths, creeps over his skin until he is  _ aching  _ for a shower. The insatiable  _ need  _ to be clean. To be  _ clean.  _ The word turns itself over in his mind until it loses all meaning, and even then, it is the only thing he can think about.  _ I want to be clean. I want to be clean. I want to— _

Inside the Marmora base’s hangar, Bez asks him in a rare show of motherly concern if he thinks he’ll be able to fly himself home. “If you need me to, I can—”

“I’ll be fine,” Keith interrupts, forces his voice into a semblance of collected even though in his head, he is everything but. Even in this state, he’s aware that Bez has already done more than enough. He can’t ask her to go out of her way to take him home after—after  _ that _ . He doesn’t even know if they were able to obtain the information they were there for. At that thought, he’s able to simulate enough attachment to the situation to voice the question, “Did you get the file?” 

“Yaltraz received it,” she confirms. She’s still looking at him like he could fall apart again at any moment. Maybe she’s right to do so; Keith still hates to see it. “Keith, are you  _ sure _ you can make it home safely?” 

He hates to see it, so as he always does—he doesn’t know what else he  _ could  _ do, if he wanted to—he looks away. “I’ll be fine,” he repeats, voice low in the way it gets when even he can’t be sure if he’s lying or telling the truth. Sometimes, it’s impossible to distinguish one from the other. “Thanks, Bez. And I . . . I’m really sorry. I—” 

“You don’t have to apologize. Or explain yourself to me.” Her voice is as gentle as the hand she carefully lowers onto his shoulder, squeezes once as a silent gesture of support. “Just go home, kit. Get some rest.” 

Keith goes home. He doesn’t remember anything from the flight; later, he’ll think it’s probably a miracle that he makes it home in one piece. Not that he  _ feels  _ at all intact by the time he lands in the castle’s hangar. He feels as if he’s been put through a shredder, carelessly glued back together with the ends not lining up quite right, and then shredded again. For a minute, he just sits in the pod because he doesn’t have the mental or physical strength necessary to carry himself all the way back to his room. 

In the end, he doesn’t make it that far. He’s passing by the door of Red’s hangar when he looks in, sees the glow of her activated particle barrier lit up against the black, and everything comes flooding back with all of the swiftness of a dam being lifted. 

“Please.” He doesn’t realize he’s taken a step toward her until he’s sliding to the floor at the edge of the barrier, feeling it like a wall of glass beneath his fingertips. He doesn’t realize he’s speaking until the words are tearing from his throat as if they’re being ripped forcibly away. He doesn’t give them permission to go, but they escape him anyway, and he is powerless against them. “ _Please_. Red, I . . . I _can’t—_ I can’t _live_ like this. I can’t _do this_ anymore, I—I just want it to _stop_. I don’t want to—to _feel_ like this anymore. I feel like I’m dying. I’m _dying, I’m—”_ He can feel the last fragments of his self-restraint dissolving as he curls himself as close to her barrier as he can, helpless when the flood finally surges up to claim him. _Don’t cry,_ reminds that harsh, paralyzing voice, the one who never leaves him alone for a _minute._ All he’s asking for is a _minute. You don’t get to cry,_ he says. But what else can Keith _do_? There is nothing left to do. _There is nothing left._ And so because of that, Keith finally finds the strength to not listen. But it isn’t strength at all; it is strength’s direct opposition: the realization that he is caught and the cold understanding that he won’t be escaping this time. He won’t be leaving this place again— _again,_ as if he’d ever managed to get away in the first place. 

Keith remembers the very night he had become Red’s paladin, her test of trust that required him to jump into the abysses of space in order to pass. He remembers that night, being alone with her and realizing that the jump wasn’t the only thing she was demanding from him. She had wanted  _ everything _ , and when he had fought, she had  _ forced _ . 

He remembers the crippling anguish that had overtaken him as she rooted through his head, turning everything over like a criminal investigator; the more he had begged her not to go there,  _ please  _ don’t touch that, she had gone there. She had yanked up the floorboards and dug up every single memory he’d tried to bury while he sat on the floor of her cockpit, unable to breathe and unable to  _ stop  _ her. It had been one of the worst kinds of pain to endure that. And then he had  _ felt  _ the moment Red realized: the moment she stopped seeing him as something to probe and understood that what she was doing was  _ wrong _ . The horror that had flooded him, the  _ guilt  _ and the  _ sorrow, _ were the first real emotions Keith had felt from her. 

He thinks that this is infinitely worse than that night had been. Because at least then, she had  _ been  _ there. And they didn’t know each other well then, but she had been  _ sorry _ , and she had offered him the invaluable gift of relief. She had somehow lifted away some of the agony that results from all this horror; she had made it  _ bearable _ . That night was awful, but it was the beginning of being able to feel like he could have a  _ life  _ again. That was more than he had had in a long time. 

It is incomparably worse, now, to have that taken away. It’s worse to sit right at her feet, begging and pleading,  _ crying  _ because all of that relief was taken away from him,  _ needing  _ it from her, but she won’t even acknowledge that he’s  _ here _ . It’s like she doesn’t feel anything for him anymore—and maybe she doesn’t, because the lions have a strange, inhuman sentience that Keith will never understand, but it’s just  _ too much _ , coming from her. Because for a little while, she had really cared, and she had helped him in a way no one else has ever been able to before. And now . . . and now she  _ doesn’t _ , and she  _ won’t _ . And he is  _ alone, again _ . 

And he is so lost, so caught up in the splintering web of his mind that he doesn’t hear it when the footsteps cross the threshold into the room, can’t hear anything over his ragged, stolen gasps until it echoes at once, words richoceting against the cavernous ceiling: “Red, what the actual quiznack is  _ up _ ? Do you have  _ any _ idea what time it i—Keith?” 

Keith goes stiff all at once, cutting off mid-sob at the too-familiar voice at his back.  _ No _ , he thinks, as an all new kind of fear alights within him.  _ No, no, he can’t be here _ —

“ _ Keith. _ ” The alarm is raising in Lance’s voice as he hears footsteps approaching from behind him; feels a presence settle down beside him on the ground. A hand hovering, like he isn’t sure whether or not it’s okay to touch. “Keith, hey—what’s . . . what’s  _ wrong _ ?” 

Keith shakes his head, too fast, going dizzy with the movement as he reaches up to swipe viciously at his eyes. Not that it does any good—Lance has already seen them. Lance isn’t going to buy any variation of  _ I’m fine’s _ from him tonight. If he ever bought them in the first place. Which, because he’s smart, he probably didn’t. “I—I’m sorry,” he says instead, voice sounding as ragged as if shards of glass are being dragged up from his throat. Each of his words feel as if they’re coated in his blood. “I didn’t want to—I just wanted to  _ feel  _ her. She won’t talk to me. She won’t—she won’t let me  _ in _ .” 

“Yeah,” Lance says softly. Sadly, knowingly. “I get it. Blue hasn’t reached out to me since the switch, either. It hurts.” 

Keith coughs. He feels absolutely disgusting; his skin is crawling beneath all of the grime. And all of that blood—he can  _ taste  _ it. He’s  _ covered  _ in it. But there is nothing he can do about it, here. “She doesn’t c- _ care _ , anymore. That’s what hurts.” 

“What?” He hears surprise fill Lance’s voice, and then he feels it as Lance finally decides to risk touching him. His hand settles, light and grounding, on Keith’s knee. “That is  _ not  _ true.  _ Of course _ Red still cares. She talks about you all the time in my head. She cares so much that she woke me up in the middle of the night so I would come find you, because she’s worried. Red does care. She just . . . she just can’t reach you, anymore. It hurts her, too.” 

Keith stares down at Lance’s hand on his knee, something solid, somehow warm even through Keith’s Blade suit. He looks up at Red’s barrier, at her yellow eyes that he can just make out through it. And he tries to match Lance’s words to them, tries to  _ believe  _ that something in her still thinks about him, still cares enough to send someone after him. But something just doesn’t click. She isn’t  _ here _ . 

“I don’t want to be alone,” he whispers. He can feel the tears pricking again, ready to pour at the first sign of weakness. But Keith’s entire being has been reduced to a series of nothing  _ but  _ weak signs, and his breath is already catching again in his throat. “ _ Lance _ , I . . . I  _ don’t want to be alone anymore _ .” 

He starts to cry again, his shoulders shaking with the force of it, so hard that some part of him is genuinely afraid he’s going to dislodge all of his bones, leave him a mess of splayed and irreparable limbs. Lance’s reaction to it is immediate: hands reaching, arms pulling him into his chest, keeping him steady while Keith scrabbles for any sort of purchase on himself, only to lose it again and again. He can’t hold onto anything, anymore. He is losing it, losing everything. And still beating behind his ribs is that thought:  _ there is nothing. There is NOTHING.  _

But then out of this darkness comes Lance, a new voice that whispers contradictions that Keith cannot understand.  _ “You’re not alone.” _ Spoken softly, right by his ear, a warmth that floods and breaks against the icy shards of undistilled agony.  _ “You are not alone, Keith. I’m here now. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”  _

And there’s a single response that rises up in what remains of Keith’s consciousness, the simple truth that Lance can’t make promises like that if he doesn’t have all of the information—facts that Keith is not willing or able to give. But he doesn’t know how to tell this to Lance, how to find a way to explain that isn’t by nature incriminating. And maybe, buried deep beneath what he knows, there’s the simple  _ want  _ to believe in Lance, if only for a moment. The want to believe that he is right, that maybe what he doesn’t know doesn’t matter, that maybe, here with Lance, he can find some semblance of what it means to be  _ okay.  _

And even if Keith didn’t want to believe in the lie, even if he was strong enough to vault over it and deliver the words he knows he and Lance both need to hear, he knows that in the end, he wouldn’t really be able to tell Lance anything. Every time he starts to think about what it would mean to tell Lance that he doesn’t get it, he remembers all of the reasons _why_ Lance doesn’t get it—it’s like his entire life story flashing before him, pages flipping as if they’re being turned by violent, tearing winds, bringing him face to face with every event that has led him here, to this exact moment of falling apart. He finds that everything, _everything_ he sees in front of him is wrong, and who he has become is at the very heart of it all. 

And he  _ doesn’t want to see it.  _ He doesn’t want to do anything but hide away in the curve of Lance’s neck until the storm is over or it finally whisks him away for good. He doesn’t want to watch as the few good things he owns disappear, stolen away as if by debt-collectors come to retrieve, to tell him:  _ these were never yours to take. It’s time to give them back.  _ Maybe he knows that it is happening; maybe he is too weak, too powerless, too undeserving to be able to stop it. But it doesn’t mean that he has to watch it. 

So he closes his eyes, buries his face in the crook of Lance’s shoulder, and pretends that none of it is real. 

  
  



	4. i love you, don't you mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith sometimes feels like the entire world around him has been set on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry guys, i know it's been way longer than two weeks when i said i would update, but i decided when i was editing this chapter that i hated everything about it so i rewrote it. and now it's twice as long as the original draft so...the lesson here is, please don't believe anything i say ever again lol. 
> 
> but i really hope you enjoy this chapter regardless of the ridiculous wait. thanks so much for sticking with me, it means a lot. 
> 
> chapter title comes from the 1975's "Me" 
> 
> also: trigger warning for some discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation

Keith sits at the island in the center of the castle’s kitchen, a cup of tea nestled between his gloved hands. He can’t feel the warmth of it against his palms, but it reaches through the porcelain to his fingertips; the steam rises up to greet his face in a gentle, barely-there caress. It’s some ungodly hour in the night, but what might on another night be filled with the uncomfortable, eerie silence of isolation is instead soundtracked with the sound of something sizzling away in a pan on the stove and the sound of one of his dearest friends’ soft chatter. 

He lost his ability to be able to pay attention to Hunk’s anecdote some time ago—he hasn’t been able to focus on much of anything lately, unless it’s a once-neglected memory dredged back up from the deep—but he thinks that at an hour like this, his friend won’t mind if he misses a few details. Hunk’s voice is a soothing balm to the grating static in his ears, however: he’s the one who had unknowingly dragged Keith out of a sea of white noise when he had found him alone in the kitchen, sitting in the dark with not a single memory of when he had gotten there or why he had come. He’d turned on the lights and at once Keith’s mind had switched from its monochrome filter to technicolor, but the haziness that clouds the scenes in his mind hasn’t quite sharpened into high definition yet. He’s beginning to wonder if he’s even capable of processing things without feeling as if he’s viewing everything from underwater, anymore. 

The clips that he’s recycling most often in recent days are his latest Blade fiasco, his arguably most untimely flashback _to date,_ and his subsequent breakdown. The breakdown that had begun on a far-out Galra base and had ended somewhere in the time it took Lance to coax Keith down from the ledge. A metaphorical ledge, of course; Keith isn’t sure of much lately, but one thing he is certain of is that if Lance hadn’t found him on the floor there, he might have never gotten back up again. 

Which is maybe a foolish, overdramatic thought. People can’t simply die just because they _feel_ as if they can’t go on. If that were the case, Keith would have dropped dead a long time ago. Long before he came to space to become part of Voltron—long before he’d ever felt the blue lion call to him in the desert. 

But playing it back, Keith thinks it might be one of the most terrifying moments he’s had in recent years. Even more than the threat against his life that he faces in battle on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis, _this_ was the very kiss of destruction that he has been pulling away from for what feels sometimes like his entire _life._ The fact that Lance was a witness to this shamefully fragile moment doesn’t make it any less terrible, even _if_ he was also the one who carried him out of it. The terrible consequence of this salvation is the knowledge that Lance has _seen_ him like this, now. He’s found him in this awful place, and now he is never going to unsee it. Keith doesn’t know how much longer his lies are going to be able to support him, now. Not after this. Not now that Lance has _tangible_ evidence to show how Keith, despite all of his feeble protests and scathing bites, is absolutely _not_ well. 

It’s a terrifying thing, not just because of this dance with devastation that he’s locked into, but because he can feel the sand in his timer running out. He’s sitting in the dunes of the hourglass as the dirt and dust pour over him, and it’s beginning to trickle into his lungs now. It won’t be long, now. 

And all he can do, trapped in the suspense and agony of waiting for it to finally catch up to him, is to ask himself: _what have I done?_

Keith sometimes feels like the entire world around him has been set on fire. Sometimes he closes his eyes and he can feel the heat of the flames on his face, _taste_ the ash that sits on his tongue, and the taste of it is the recognition of all of his own personal failures and transgressions, and they burn like nothing he has ever felt before. The fire that he sees on the horizon is rapidly taking over the ground, an avalanche eating up the side of a mountain. Encircling him, surrounding him, caging him in as the panic and the sparks prickle along the bare skin of his arms and face. _What have I done, what have I done,_ what have I done? 

Keith has loathed the flames from the very moment that they took his father from him. He had been seven years old when fire painted his world in acrimonious oranges and blinding reds, had been a mere child when he first learned the definition of the word _agony._ And from the very beginning Keith had asked himself: _what could I have done to prevent this, what did I fail to do?_ and no one had ever had any answers for him, no one had ever _explained_ it to him that sometimes, destruction rises up against people who do not deserve it, with no discernible reason that can be found. Sometimes the fire just comes, spreads across the land like a foul and invasive disease, and it _takes,_ and it _kills,_ and it leaves others behind with no logic to its method. 

And when the fire had ended, Keith had been there at the very heart of it: the fossilized dregs of all that was left. Sitting in the ashes, the only thing besides himself that remained, the _physical_ proof to tell him that he was all alone. _What have I done? What have I done?_

He hadn’t wanted to be alone. He didn’t want to be _alone._ In the end, he thinks that was the determining factor that played his hand for him. The desperation that drove him to make the choices he made, to fall the way he fell, to _burn_ the way he allowed the flames to burn. But he had known better than to play with fire anyway; he was a _smart_ boy, his father had always told him. But being smart evidently has nothing to do with decision-making, in the end, because every time Keith had been presented with an option after his father’s death, he had chosen wrong. 

That’s all there is. Him, the ashes, and the weight of that knowledge. Keith had choices. And he chose _wrong._

There is no one to blame for this wreckage but himself. 

_What have I done?_

The question pulses in time with the beat of his heart, rushes with the blood that thrums in his ears like the sound one hears within the cavity of a conch shell. It’s the question he’s asked himself for years without ever finding the answer; it’s the question that overwhelms now, like a wave, the sound of Hunk’s voice or the space-equivalent of butter frying on the stove. 

But this question, unlike him, is not alone. It has plenty of friends, and they all clamor to be heard over it. _How could I let this happen?_ is quickly joined by: _how could I ever forgive myself?_ joined by: _how can I live with myself?_

How can anyone live with the weight of what they’ve done, when the weight is far more than their shoulders have ever been capable of bearing? How is anyone meant to _survive_ it? 

Keith sometimes feels like the entire world around him has been set on fire, and when it’s all over, he comes to the cold realization that he is not sitting _in_ the ashes. He _is_ the ashes. He closes his eyes and sees who he once was: a child of the desert who ran like the wind and burned like the fire he carried. And then he sees the child he became: a flame doused-out and abandoned, frozen and _aching_ on the ground until he couldn’t take it anymore. That boy had died so long ago that Keith can’t stand to _look_ at him now. All he wants— _all he has ever wanted_ —is to kick the last of the dirt over that boy’s grave and _bury him_. 

But how can you bury a child who materializes before you every time you close your eyes? How can you bury a child who may be dead, but _refuses to die?_

He doesn’t know. But he looks at him now and the guilt rises up, the nauseated horror, the _what have I done?_ rearing its ugly and impartial head up again. 

“Keith? Hey . . . dude, are you alright? You’re spacing out on me, and you kinda look like you’re going to puke.” 

The sea spits Keith out again at once, back onto the present’s shore and Hunk’s anxious frown. “I—what?” 

All of the background noise from before, Hunk’s mindless chatter over the steady crackling of the pan, has ceased completely. In the wake of it, the new silence feels thick and unnatural. And there’s Hunk sitting across from him, the pan of glazed fruit kebabs going ignored between them as he waits for Keith to come back online. 

“Sorry,” he blurts instinctively. Part of him wants to ask how long he’d zoned out for; by the tone of Hunk’s voice when Keith finally registered that he was being spoken to, it wasn’t the first time he’d tried getting his attention. 

Hunk’s gaze on him doesn’t change, honey brown infused with worry over _him._ “You don’t need to apologize, man,” he says, and he could almost sound incredulous if not for the note of hesitance in his voice. “Listen . . .” he goes on tentatively, “I don’t mean to like, sound like I’m accusing you or anything. And I’m _not._ But I’ve been kind of worried about you lately. You’ve seemed . . . out of it.” 

Automatically, Keith can feel his barriers raising like the protective layer of spines along a porcupine’s back. “I’ve been a little tired recently,” he says defensively. “It’s not a big deal.” 

“Isn’t it?” Hunk replies softly. “Keith, look. Something’s obviously up. I don’t know if it’s just because you’ve been splitting your time between Voltron and the Blade, and I don’t think it is, but . . . honestly? I don’t think it’s helping your stress levels any. Haven’t you ever considered, I dunno . . . taking a break?” 

“I don’t need breaks,” Keith replies. Even he can hear how easily the stubbornness in his voice is underlied by exhaustion. “It’s _fine,_ Hunk. I’m fine. I know how much I can handle.” 

In an effort to distract both himself and his friend, he leans forward to pluck up one of Hunk’s fruit-speared sticks from the tray. “Strawberries?” he questions in an all-too-obvious attempt at changing the subject, and for a moment, Hunk seems willing to go along with it. He nods, but it’s followed up by a seesawing motion of his hand. “Jorkaberries. I picked them up on the last planet you visited with us. The one with the gigantic produce market? But yeah, they taste kinda like strawberries. Pidge and I have actually been trying to work out a formula that can extrapolate how many planets across the universe could potentially have fruits similar to those on Earth. I mean, it’ll by no means be a _solid_ formula, but it could be—” Hunk cuts himself off abruptly, his eyes fixing somewhere below Keith’s own. And then a strange tension flattens Hunk’s mouth into a line in the moment right before he says, with a calmness that can only be called such because of it’s emptiness: “What is that?” 

“What is what?” Keith frowns, straightening up a little more as he looks down at himself. But there’s nothing off about how he’s _dressed;_ it’s the same jeans-shirt-jacket combo as always. And then Hunk says, “On your neck.” 

Keith’s hand flies up to his throat, but he still has no idea what Hunk is talking about until he applies the slightest pressure and a quiet starburst of discomfort flares from it. _Oh, shit._

“Nothing. It’s nothing—” Keith starts, even though he knows it’s a lost cause as soon as he opens his mouth. He does not want to have this discussion with Hunk right now, so late at night that it’s closer to morning, when the reason _for_ the discussion occurred less than two nights ago. 

But Hunk’s not having it. “That’s definitely a bruise,” he says obstinately, and _leans forward_ as if to try and get a closer look. Keith pulls away before he can get too close—as if he really could, with the counter-space that separates them—as Hunk goes on, _“When_ did you get that? _How?_ It was when you were on a mission with the Blade, wasn’t it? Someone _attacked_ you while you were with the Blade and you didn’t tell us about it? What the hell, man? And why have you _kept_ going on missions? You’d think after that you’d be _done—”_

“If I was the type of person to quit just because I got hurt in one battle, I would have quit after our very first one against Zarkon,” Keith snaps. “Yes, I was in a fight recently. That’s what _happens_ when you fight hand-to-hand against someone whose objective is to kill you. But it’s not the first time, and it’s not a big deal. So just _drop it.”_

It’s only when he hears Hunk’s sharp, surprised intake of breath that Keith realizes that he’s stood up, hands flattened on the island to keep him steady. He’s nearly shaking, his own breath tearing too fast and too harsh from his own lungs, and Hunk is looking at him as if he doesn’t know who he is. As if he’s a volatile, potentially _dangerous_ stranger. 

“What’s happening to you, Keith?” he asks, in this terrible, subdued tone that rings hollow in the space between them. Again, Keith is uncomfortably aware of how tense and thick the air feels, how nothing feels _right._ Especially not the look on Hunk’s face. 

Especially not the icy vacancy in his chest when he says, “Nothing that you need to worry about,” or the hurt look on Hunk’s face that he catches in the brief second before he turns away. Hunk doesn’t try to call after him when he goes, and he thinks that that might be the most awful thing, in this moment. 

When Hunk of all people is too upset to come after you, that’s when you know you’ve royally fucked up. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Sometimes, the guilt is not this silent, cloaked figure in the corner. It is not a faraway memory, a recognition of his failures from _then._ Sometimes, it hits far closer to the present, and cuts far more deeply than the pain of the past. 

_What have I done?_ becomes much less a rhetorical, detached question when your friends’ lives are on the line. 

_What have I done? What have I done?_

Keith can’t leave the black lion. His hands are clenched around the armrests of the pilot’s seat; his jaw, holding back minutes’ and years’ and a millennia’s worth of screams, is clenched in much the same way. 

“She was almost hit,” he whispers to himself around locked teeth, because there’s some large chunk of his brain that hasn’t quite processed this yet. “She was almost hit, it—it would have been _my fault._ They had a clear shot at her but— _I_ had a clear shot at them, I could have taken them, but she was almost hit, she was almost _hit—”_

In his mind’s eye, a light show of lasers flashes in a sporadic, spinning, _sinister_ game of tag. He sees the empty, black space opening up, and there’s nothing, there’s _nothing,_ but Keith’s suddenly trapped in a game of _catch me if you can_ and for that single, significant moment, his entire world turns black. When the light finally hits him just right, it’s too late—

The space is swallowed up by the previously unnoticed enemy ship, blasters whirring and ready—

_“Keith, DO SOMETHING!”_ Pidge is screaming, they’re _all_ screaming, all of them but Allura—

Allura, who is right there in the line of fire, and _she_ is only now realizing herself the danger she’s in—

But his hands fumble on Black’s controls, slip as if they’re coated in paint, in _blood,_ and he’s the one with the closest shot at intercepting the blast but he _can’t—_

“ALLURA!” someone shouts in fear, Keith thinks it’s Hunk but he can’t be sure—

The universe seems to stop as they’re hit with a sudden, jolting hum of silence: it’s as if they’ve all plunged into this other-dimensional ocean that resides with the empty pockets of space. When Keith finally emerges, it is to this: his clenched hands and clenched jaw and clenched heart. This sickness that pours like ink, like some toxic oil from the core of him, this _realization_ that strikes even through the attempt to convince himself he doesn’t believe it. He _doesn’t believe it, but—_

_What have I_ done? 

There’s this weight _pressing_ on him, like—

And at once, Keith finds the single motivator he needs to get the _hell_ away from the black lion. 

He tears out of her cockpit like a bat out of hell, yanking his helmet off as he goes because he can’t _breathe._ Everyone else is already there, _of course_ they are, but he can’t even stand to look at their faces as he passes because he’s terrified of what he’s going to see. He knows it must be there but he doesn’t want to see to outrage—the four blazing sets of eyes that will mirror _everything_ he already knows. And they call after him, a clamor of voices shouting his name that all tangle into one unbearable, weighted sound: _“Keith!”_

He makes it through the doors before they can overcome their shock, though; he makes it into the corridor before it hits. His erratic heart slamming like a wave into him in time with the sound of his boots against the floor: pounding, crushing, _obliterating._ It’s a push that sends him reeling, careening into the wall when it opens on a corner, and he closes his eyes because everything is bending in this unbreaking, waving line and he can’t tell up from down. His hands are the only things that ground him, flying out to catch on the solid surface of what might be a wall, or the floor, or the _ceiling_ for all he is able to discern. 

“Keith! Keith!” someone is calling, their voice bouncing and reverberating in an endless volley; of course they would send one after him. He hopes, in the single breath of uncertainty allotted to him, for Lance: at least Lance has seen him this way before, Lance has seen him _worse_ than this before—or maybe this _is_ worse because this time, it’s not _about_ him, it’s about their friend who almost died because of his incompetence—

“Keith.” But this time the voice is closer, and Keith recognizes it as plainly as he’d recognize the sight of his own shattered reflection. _Shiro._ A hand settles onto his shoulder, lightly enough to not feel aggressive but firmly enough to not make his skin crawl beneath it, and his brother’s voice is softer when it reaches him again. “Keith, what was that back there?” 

Keith’s skin may not be crawling, but his heart is fluttering like the wings of a frantic bird trapped, flightless, within the confines of a cage. “Nothing,” flies out of him immediately, “Nothing, Shiro, I swear it—” 

“Keith,” Shiro says again. Still so softly. So unbearably, _understandingly_ softly. “You don’t have to lie to me.” 

But Keith fights against it anyway, ducking beneath Shiro’s hand to whirl on him, feeling his back hit the wall as he does. “I’m _not._ It was just me being . . . I—I wasn’t paying attention. That’s _all,_ okay?” 

He’s expecting them to continue back and forth in this way: Shiro pleading, himself insisting, as they have done countless times before. That’s the natural script they follow, and there is _no reason_ to break it now. 

But Shiro breaks it anyway. The next thing he says is so unexpected that it is almost jarring: “You know,” he begins, though his tone already indicates that Keith _doesn’t,_ “Lance and Hunk have both come to me, recently, with some concerns. They’re worried about you.” 

It catches Keith so off guard that for a moment, he doesn’t know how to react. He can’t help thinking that something about this is so _unlike_ Shiro. Shiro is the one who comes to talk him down from the ledge, to try to make him believe that things aren’t as bad as they look. Keith doesn’t always believe him—in fact, he rarely ever does—but that’s what Shiro does _anyway._ And he knows his brother enough to know that he can’t _possibly_ believe anything good will come out of reminding Keith that not only is he crashing and burning, but _everyone_ else is watching it happen. 

“I don’t—what are you—” he fumbles, hoping he’ll land on the right question, if there _is_ one. But then the full meaning of what Shiro has just told him catches up to him, and suddenly he’s playing back the night he spent sobbing against Red’s particle barrier, and then in Lance’s arms—and he’s recalling Hunk only nights later, only days ago, saying: “ _What’s happening to you, Keith?”_ And logically, it hits at once, he should have _known_ this conversation was coming. He should have known they’d go to Shiro after everything that’s happened, because Shiro is the one who is always able to get through to Keith, to make him see things clearly, to talk him through his temporary lunacy, and they all know that. Shiro, especially, knows that. 

_But why now?_ an uneasy, whispering voice wonders from one of the murky, crowded crevices of his mind. _Why_ here, _why after that? Why does it have to happen_ now? 

“I—” Keith doesn’t want to talk about this, now. He wouldn’t want to talk about this even if they _weren’t_ all coming down from the closest call they’ve had in a while; a call that, had it gone wrong, would have been _completely_ on Keith. His teammate and friend could have been hurt or worse because of him, and instead of worrying over _her_ wellbeing, Shiro wants to talk about Keith’s personal issues and how worried everyone else is over _him._ It isn’t _right._ “Listen, Shiro—” he tries to explain, _not now,_ but then Shiro does something he’s _never_ done before. 

He cuts him off. “No,” he says, clipped, to the point, so _unexpected_ that it nearly sends Keith reeling. And there’s that anxious whisper in his head rising up again to point out the obvious: _Shiro never cuts you off like this._ _Something is wrong. Something is_ wrong. But Shiro is still speaking, saying, “Keith, please let me talk. Just for a minute. You haven’t given me that much time in months.” 

Keith opens his mouth, protests and excuses automatically bubbling up from his throat. But before the first one can make it to the tip of his tongue, all of the fight in him fizzles out like a defective firecracker. 

This is the same conversation that he’s been putting off having for weeks. He’d hoped that by ignoring it every time it comes up, eventually Shiro would just get the message and let it go. But he’s been stubbornly refusing to look the logic in the eye: the fact that no matter _how_ hard he tries to avoid it, it’s just going to keep coming up. And this may very well be the worst timing for it, but—they’re already here. Common sense tells him that it’ll be more time-consuming to stand here and argue with Shiro anyway, and the only thing Keith wants is to go hide in his room as quickly as possible before any of the others come looking for him. 

Keith presses himself further into the wall to keep himself upright. Part of him hopes that maybe if he does it for long enough, it’ll open up and devour him. When it doesn’t, he swallows down the knot in his throat, crosses his arms over his chest, and inclines his head in a lukewarm nod. “Fine. Talk,” he mutters. 

He can feel Shiro’s gaze on him, heavy in this distinctly uncomfortable way. Keith can’t bring himself to look up beneath the gravity of it, so instead he pretends to study the smooth, featureless white of the floor. The lights overhead seem too bright, reflecting its surface back up at him with the same sort of effect that occurs when a fire bends the light around it, casting the illusion that the air above is flickering. 

“They didn’t tell me what happened,” Shiro finally says, just when the silence between them is beginning to feel sempiternal. “Neither of them went into detail about the conversations they’ve had with you lately. I’m not going to ask you to, either. But Keith . . .” He hesitates, and here Keith registers that he’s nearly back to his soft-spoken lilt. Almost, but still with that barely-perceptible _something._ He isn’t sure that edge is still actually there or not; isn’t sure if maybe now that he’s heard it once, it will be impossible to hear his brother’s voice any other way. 

“I’ve never seen Lance the way he was when he came to talk to me. He didn’t say he was afraid, not explicitly, but I still understood that he was. Keith, he’s afraid that something bad is going to happen to you. That if we can’t do _something,_ then you’re going to slip away from us for good. And you know, Keith? I’m afraid of that, too.” 

There’s this image that instinctively draws itself in his mind for Keith to look at. It’s not one he’s ever seen in life, and he can really only imagine the details based on Shiro’s vague description, but nevertheless it’s a picture that he immediately hates his mind for painting. It’s Lance, this picture of him so distressed, so _frightened_ in the aftermath of Keith’s breakdown that the only thing he could think to do was go to Shiro. It’s Lance with bruise-like rings beneath his eyes from the sleep he’d lost staying up with him, it’s Lance mentally replaying the sound and feeling of Keith’s body-wracking sobs as he stumbles through voicing his fears, it’s Lance biting his tongue almost to bleeding in his efforts to hold back anything that might incriminate Keith, even if the only person he’s speaking with is just his brother. 

Part of Keith wants, irrationally, to be angry at Lance for telling his brother anything at all. But before the notion can even materialize as a full thought, Keith has already shut it down. If it was even a _possibility_ for him to be angry at Lance for caring, then he would never have fallen in love with him. And anyway, at the end of the day, all of the blame that circulates around him belongs _only_ to him. Lance isn’t the one at fault, here. 

“So what’s your point?” is all Keith can ask; he’s not in the mood for beating around the bush when there are so many other directions his mind is tugging him, places that are _much_ more pressing and immediate than this conversation. And he’s grateful, at least, that Shiro must see and understand that. 

He is less grateful for the blunt, blatantly indelicate question he throws at him next. 

“Have you been having suicidal thoughts again?” 

The strange thing about it is that Shiro sounds as if he’s trying for his usual gentle tones, just missing the mark, and up to this point Keith has been trying not to let himself become more affected than he already _is._ But he can’t fight his body’s instinctive flinch to that _word_ , the _fight-or-flight_ response that is humming to life from a place that makes him feel terrifyingly young. And he’s finally able to tear his gaze away from the floor to meet Shiro’s, hoping that his eyes _burn_ where they land. 

“Why the _hell_ would you ask me that?” he’s barely able to keep himself from shouting it, only distantly aware still that they aren’t that far from the hangars, if any of the others are still there. And this is the last conversation he’d want someone to walk in on. “What the fuck kind of question is that? Are you—are _you_ seriously trying to imply that . . . that they _stopped?”_

And he _genuinely can’t believe it,_ because—isn’t Shiro the one who’s always told him that this is always going to be something that he just has to live with? Something that he’ll be fighting for the rest of his life but, _"_ _you_ can, _Keith. You’re strong, far stronger than the darkest moments of your life, stronger than anyone I know.”_ Where is _that_ man, the one who seemed to understand the screwed-up mechanisms of Keith’s brain better than he could himself? Because Shiro had _told_ Keith, even after he connected with Red and was beginning to feel like a _person_ again, that because they didn’t understand yet how their bonds with the lions worked, he should still be prepared in case another wave hit. 

Three years later, this is the same person who says to him, “You . . . you said they did.” 

Keith has never hated anything about Shiro before, but in this moment, he can’t _stand_ that note in his voice, the brotherly worry that suffuses from him. For the first time in his life, Keith finds Shiro’s presence to be _suffocating._

“For a little while, before I . . . before,” Shiro goes on, so hesitant, as if _now_ he’s beginning to grasp the weight of the topic _he’s_ started. “You said you were getting better. You were doing so _well,_ Keith.” 

“Yeah, well. A lot changed while you were gone.” Bitterly, Keith recalls again that phantom _press,_ that subtle weight of expectation nudging against his mind. This unnatural balance of overbearing and unintrusive, so unlike Red, so much more _difficult_ to deal with. 

_“What_ changed? That’s what I don’t understand.” And something about it—the genuine incredulity in Shiro’s voice, maybe; the fact that it’s not so difficult to figure out, really, if you just step back and take a good look at the full picture—startles this rough, half-laughing sound out of him, even though nothing about it could be considered the slightest bit funny. 

“Why don’t you ask Black? I’m sure she could fill you in.” 

What he’s _expecting_ Shiro to say (because even now, he’s still trying to predict how this is going to go), is something along the lines of: _Oh. I . . . I didn’t see it that way, before. I didn’t put it together, but of_ course _this is the effect of Red severing her bond with you. Of course this is because Black approaches situations differently—I should know, I was her paladin. You know, there was one time where she and I . . ._ and on and on. Normally when Shiro tries to give advice, he tries to tie in a personal experience when he can just so that Keith doesn’t feel so alienated. That’s something he’s been doing since Keith was fourteen. It’s the response he _expects,_ even, and it only occurs to him now how strange that must be, to pin expectations on the people in your life just because of patterns they’ve followed in the past. So many things could be considered out of the ordinary to him, when it comes to his brother. So many things, like—

“I . . .” Shiro’s face wipes suddenly, eerily blank as he looks at Keith, like an AI who hasn’t been programmed to understand social and emotional cues. And he says: “You know that Black won’t talk to me. You know that she won’t let me back in as her paladin.” 

_You know that she won’t let me back in as her paladin._

This awful, cold feeling drops into the pit of Keith’s stomach, like a stalactite of ice plummeting. 

“This isn’t really about me,” he says slowly, as it’s coming together in his head. This isn’t about him; Shiro didn’t come after him to talk about him after all. This _is_ about Allura—it’s about the whole team, and Keith’s place on it. How _badly_ he’s been doing as a leader lately, even before tonight happened. 

“What are you talking about?” Shiro tries to deny it anyway. “Of course this is about you—” 

“Don’t lie, Shiro,” Keith replies tiredly. “This is about them. I’m a pretty shitty black paladin, huh?” 

The truth of it is, even now, the words feel foreign and wrong in his mouth. The very _concept_ of being the black paladin feels more like a poorly-scripted action movie plot element for character development than it does his actual life. In his mind, he is _still_ the red paladin—regardless of how Red locked him out, regardless of how Lance is, technically, now the red paladin. 

He had to call himself the black paladin all of those months while Shiro was gone because a black paladin was what Voltron _needed._ But he’s always felt more like he’s assuming a role than stepping into who he truly is. He is not a natural-born leader, or even the one who can be molded into the seamless leadership that Shiro had believed he possessed all those years ago when he told him that he wanted Keith to be his successor. Back then, Keith had told him what a terrible idea that was, and Shiro hadn’t believed him. 

So it’s a shock to him, how much it hurts to see that Shiro _is_ starting to believe him—just a few years too late. The damage has already been done, hasn’t it? 

“I’m not saying that you’re a bad leader,” Shiro is mincing his words and Keith can tell, can _feel_ how hard he is trying to placate him. “It’s just that . . . it would be _okay,_ Keith, if you needed to step away. If you needed to take some time for yourself, the others would understand. And I know that you’re aware you haven’t been at your— _best,_ lately. But that isn’t your fault. But what would be, would be if you continued to brush this off and pretend nothing is wrong. You’ve been disappearing so much lately, and it _is_ taking a toll on the team. And what happened tonight . . . it’s been a long time coming, Keith. I’m just saying, maybe it would be best for you to step back and consider what would be best for the others.” 

There’s so much bitterness welling up inside of Keith, this endless waterfall as black as pure coffee and scalding at the highest degree. “You think that I don’t think about what would be best for the others?” he says quietly. In this empty hallway, it’s impossible for any sound to escape notice; there’s no doubt in his mind that Shiro hears the way his breath hitches. And he looks at Shiro, feeling that desperation inside of him churn itself into something sharp, biting, venomous. But even though he’s looking at Shiro and talking to Shiro, none of that awful, overpowering _resentment_ is directed at him at all. 

“I _NEVER WANTED THIS,_ Shiro.” A pebble-sized crack, a dozen baby hairline fractures beginning to spider off into their own tributaries. And once it begins to flow, it _flows._ “I didn’t _ASK_ to be the black paladin. It was never what I wanted, but you never asked _me_ what I wanted, and maybe if you’d listened instead of going on about all of my _potential_ , then— _then_ you could’ve seen what an _awful_ thing that was to do. The reason why _everything_ has gone to shit has to do with me becoming the black paladin, and maybe, _maybe_ if you hadn’t been so convinced, then Black wouldn’t have been either, and none of this would have fucking _happened_ in the _first place.”_

He’s only aware that he’s shouting by the way his voice scrapes in his throat as if it is being yanked, long fingernails digging their way beneath his words and _forcing._ And his face is too hot, _everything_ is too hot, he tries to press his hands to his cheeks to cool them but it doesn’t work because the gloves are there—the fucking _gloves—_

“I was counting on you to be the leader when you came back,” he says. He’s no longer shouting; he just feels . . . empty. He would say dead, except he guesses he doesn’t really know what that feels like, does he? “I was _counting_ on you. We all know that you are more fit to be the leader than I ever could or will be. So just—stop _lying,_ about this being for me to take a mental break to find my center or whatever shit you were going to try and feed me. Stop pretending that you still believe I can be a better leader and just own up to what we both know is true. You want Black back. If you can convince her to take you, then you can _have her.”_

He thinks that it must be some sort of sacrilege, speaking about the lion who claimed him in such a way. Later, he’ll wonder how she didn’t sever her connection to him right then and there; wonder why she didn’t take Shiro _back_ then and there. That would have been a neat, clean ending scene, right? The long-lost hero finally able to reclaim his throne; the impostor who’s been wearing his face the whole time finally exposed and swiftly _dis_ posed of—or at the very least, banished from the kingdom. But this isn’t a movie (Keith is sure, because if it was then he would have received his character-redemption arc by now), so of course it isn’t that clean. Black’s presence is still there in the back of his head when those words tear out of his mouth; she emits this soft, low rumble of hurt before going silent again. But silent as she is, she is still _always_ there, only a mind-link transmission away. 

“Keith . . .” Shiro shakes his head, but the regret in his face is enough to let Keith know everything he is thinking. “I’m so sorry that things turned out this way,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry that I—that I put this weight on you. I should have known that it would be too much for you. That was unfair of me. I’m sorry.” 

_I’m sorry._ Keith thinks that maybe he gets what Lance is always on about, now. Saying you’re sorry doesn’t mean a damn thing when everything you’ve demonstrated before the apology is doused in the contrary. 

And all Keith can say, around the painful lump in his throat and the sickness in his chest and the swelling, unstoppable blackness in the pit of his stomach, is a choked, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry too.” 

  
  


_____

  
  


_It’s been a long time coming._

Keith has stood at the crossroads enough times to know what is happening. It’s the same indecision, the same war between what he _wants_ versus what he _should_ do, or what he _has_ to do, but it’s still the _same._ It’s almost familiar, that sensation you get in your stomach when you know you’re about to make a choice that will completely change the course of your entire life, when you know that you’re probably going to regret the outcome no matter what you choose. 

It’s a lose-lose situation in all four directions, but the challenge isn’t finding a way to win. It’s calculating which loss will be the least painful for who. And it’s almost like all of the deciding factors, at least for Keith, revolve around how his friends will feel about what he ultimately chooses. Not that they know there is a choice to be made, but they _will_ be most affected, won’t they? 

They’ve been unintentionally affected by a lot of the things Keith has done, lately. His absences during missions and relief efforts haven’t gone unnoticed by them _or_ the planets they interact with. At this rate, he’ll ruin Voltron’s image before they ever defeat Zarkon. He’s caused them more unnecessary confusion, stress, _frustration_ in the past months than any of them should have to put up with—Lance especially has had to take on more of the burden than he should have. And no matter what way Keith tries to look at it, there’s no getting around that all of the blame falls on _him._ He’s the one who bails when the team needs him; he’s the one who, when he _does_ bother to show up, only does more harm than good. 

_It’s been a long time coming._ Maybe it has been. Maybe from the very moment Red shut him out, it was all leading up to Keith making the decision to leave the team. 

And he _is_ thinking about the team when he decides to leave them. 

When it comes out that a mission is being planned surrounding the new intel regarding Lotor, it seems to Keith like everything is lining up perfectly. The timing of it all feels a bit like fate: between everything going on with Voltron and his most recent conversation with Shiro, it’s impossible to see this as anything but a sign. _This is how it is supposed to be. This is everything that gives your life any sort of meaning, coming to an end. And it has been a long time coming, hasn’t it?_

In the end, Keith doesn’t give a shit about Lotor or whatever the hell he’s plotting— _if_ he’s even plotting anything, and they still don’t know for sure. But he cares about his team, about the family that he found for himself, even if it was only meant to last for a little while. If Keith felt he had any sort of choice, he would _never_ choose to leave them; but choosing between staying with them because he doesn’t want to leave and risking someone getting hurt because of him versus leaving them and trusting that they’ll be better off without him is hardly a choice at all. The choice is already made for him before he sits down to weigh the pros and cons. 

The choice is already made when he comes to Allura’s door in the middle of the night, his heart feeling as heavy in his chest as his tongue in his mouth when she opens it. She’s bleary purple-turquoise eyes and a nest of white bedhead, creases on her skin from her pillowcase and confusion when she sees him standing there. 

“Keith?” she groggily asks, rubbing at her eyes before squinting at him again as if confirming for herself, _yes, he’s really standing here at three in the morning._ “What are you doing up? Has something happened?” 

“I’m sorry for waking you,” Keith says tensely, eyes flitting to hers and then away, landing somewhere between her shoulder and her dark bedroom beyond. “But I—there are some things I need to tell you, and if I don’t do it now . . .” He can feel his throat closing up again the way it had when he practiced this speech in the mirror; that indescribable darkness that is growing, spreading throughout his veins and filling every part of himself. It’s taking over again, and he’s _afraid_ of what’s going to happen when it isn’t just inside of him anymore but begins to spill over. But not as afraid as he is that someone that he loves is going to be there to see it. 

“Alright,” Allura says, looking no less confused, though a mild concern is building alongside it. She shifts in the doorway, glancing behind her before turning back to Keith. “Do you want to perhaps come inside?” 

Keith wants nothing more than to just sit down with Allura and pretend that this is just one of their late-night conversations; that they’re passing the time between bouts of insomnia and that in the morning everything will feel better. But that’s the exact reason why he shakes his head, because he _can’t._ “No. This won’t take long. Just—just listen, okay? It’s important.” 

Allura hesitates, looking for a moment as if she’s going to protest. But finally she gives a curt nod. “I . . . alright. What is it?” 

Keith takes a deep breath. He tells himself that he’s prepared for anything: for anger or confusion, for her to brush him off entirely and tell him he’s being an idiot. Or maybe she won’t even be surprised and will agree with Shiro. _It’s been a long time coming. What are you even still doing here, Keith?_

“I wanted to say that I’m sorry for what happened.” He brings himself to meet her gaze when he tells her, because even if this is difficult for him, she at least should _know_ that he means it. “Last week, when you—when I wasn’t there when you needed backup. That was a serious error on my part, and I just wanted you to know how _sorry_ I am because—because I care about you so much and if something had happened to you—” His breath hitches, a subconscious gesture to _stop, take a breath._ He is _not_ going to cry again, especially not in front of Allura. 

Allura blinks at him owlishly for a moment, growing even more confused. “You’re still upset about that?” she says, incredulous, then more softly, “Keith, you’ve already apologized to me seven times since it happened. I know you didn’t mean any harm. We all have our off moments in battle, and just because you’re the black paladin now doesn’t mean you’re excluded from that. It is _okay._ Everything worked out all right in the end, and nothing happened to me, so you don’t have to continue to beat yourself up like this.” 

Keith nods like she’s right, like he understands, even though he very much doesn’t. He’s never known how to _not_ beat himself up for things, especially when the things he’s done affect other people. “Okay,” he says, pauses, takes another deep breath. _Here we go._ “But that’s not—I mean, it’s not the only reason why I’m here. I need you to promise me something.” 

Allura cocks her head to the side, a peculiar curiosity making itself known in the light that hits her face. “And what is that?” she asks. 

“We both know that I haven’t been at my best, lately.” His eyes dart away from hers as he speaks. His throat still feels as if it’s been squeezed, air catching there as if being held hostage, and the bruises that still stain his neck seem to twinge as a reminder that they are still there. “I’ve been—I keep messing up. I know you’ve been frustrated with me, and believe me, I have been too. But I don’t think this is something that I can fix. There’s something in me that’s just—it’s broken, Allura. It’s been that way for a long time, but I can feel it finally starting to catch up with me now. Because I’m _tired,_ Allura. I’m so tired of fighting.” 

“Fighting what?” Allura whispers. The confusion on her face is dropping as she realizes how serious this is, replaced by something much more grave as she straightens to make herself seem a little taller. “Zarkon?” 

But Keith shakes his head, ignores the question completely as he goes on. _Stick to the script._ “I’m telling you this because if . . . _if_ someday, I can’t do this anymore, then I need you to lead the team. To do what I couldn’t. Because I was never meant to be a leader, but Allura, you _are_ one. In every way that counts, you’re a true leader. So I need you to tell the others—tell them I’m _sorry._ That I couldn’t be what they needed. That I let you all down. I’m sorry.” 

“I . . . I don’t understand.” It’s a rare display when Allura clues anyone in that she’s lost, but it’s written all over her now. And she’s looking at Keith like he has the answer, like he’s about to pull out a map and point her in the right direction, like she doesn’t get why he hasn’t already. “You haven’t let any of us down. Keith, what are you _talking_ about?” 

“Just promise me,” he repeats. “Allura, _please._ Just promise you’ll take care of them. That you’ll be what they need.” 

“I— _no._ No, Keith, I won’t promise that. Because you are still _here._ And you aren’t going anywhere.” Allura pauses, a dark look crossing over her face as the idea plants itself, rooting there. “You _aren’t_ going anywhere. Right?” 

He has to look away from the heat of her gaze, burning as intensely as guilt. “I know that you’ll be able to do the right thing. To make the difficult decisions, when it comes down to it. You’re strong, Allura. And I—I know that I shouldn’t put this weight on you, but you’re the only one that I don’t feel like I have to _worry_ about. The others are—they’re strong, but they aren’t like you and Shiro. And with Shiro—he may try, but I know that he’s tired, too. And even though I can trust him to be here . . . I can’t ask him to take it all back on himself. He’s been through enough already.” Keith breathes in, holds it for a silent count of three before he meets her eyes again. Hers are bright with a stubborn, contained fire, and he thinks: _good._ Let her be angry at him. Allura has always known how to take her anger and turn it into something positive: to take a war and turn it into a chance to unite planets, to take a loss and turn it into an opportunity to let something new grow. It’s a fire that drives _forward_ instead of tearing down, and this is the fire Keith was thinking of when he was trying to find the strength to leave them. 

He can leave them knowing that they’re _safe_ with her. She will keep them from crumbling. “Do you understand?” He sees in that fire that she does. 

But still, she shakes her head, unyielding, refusing to accept it. “Why do you sound as if you are saying goodbye?” she asks, and her voice cracks, and her grip on the doorway turns almost violent. “Why . . . why are you _saying_ these things, Keith?” 

All Keith can do is say, again, barely able to keep his own voice from breaking again, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Allura. But you have to promise.” 

“You already know that I will,” she says angrily, her words loud enough now to echo in the hall. “But why must I _say_ it? Why must I, when I do not _want_ to? It is clear to me that you don’t want this, either. You’re only doing what you think you should, for the good of Voltron, but what you are thinking about doing is _not_ what will be best for the team. If you are tired of bearing your burdens alone, then perhaps ask one of us for support, _for once,_ instead of running away. You are a paladin of _Voltron_ and you are our _leader._ You cannot just leave us like this; the others will not stand for it either.” 

“The others will learn to accept it,” Keith replies, just as stubbornly as his frustration builds. She has to _understand._ “Look, Allura, my mind is made up. This _is_ what’s best; it doesn’t matter what I want. All of you—you’ll be _better off without me.”_

He isn’t sure if it’s the words themselves or the conviction in his voice when he says them, but Allura draws back from him as if he’s slapped her. Blinking, as if she can’t process what has just been said. And then she goes deathly still. 

“What,” she says lowly, “is that supposed to mean?” 

Truthfully, Keith isn’t sure himself, yet. He’s still trying to work out the finer details in his mind, but for now, the only thing that matters is convincing them that he wants to go with the Blade. Once he’s with them . . . well. He guesses he doesn’t matter what happens to him, after. 

“We both know it’s true,” he says tiredly. “Don’t act so surprised.” 

“It is _not_ true,” Allura argues. “It is wrong. _You_ are wrong. If you leave, everyone will be devastated. Keith, if you would _think_ for just a moment about what you’re doing—” 

“I _have_ thought about it, Allura. It’s all I’ve been able to think about for _days._ Please don’t—don’t make this harder than it already is.” 

“But it doesn’t have to _be_ this hard. Please, Keith,” she reaches out, grasping in desperation for one of his hands, pulling it to her to clasp between her own. _Begging,_ “I won’t pretend to understand what is going on in your head, but what I _know_ is that you have a whole team here for you, willing and _able_ to support you. It does not have to be this way. Things don’t have to be like this.” 

For a moment, Keith stares at the places where their hands meet, his nestled between her own. Her hands, contrary to what one might think, are not a princess’s hands. They are calloused and strong, durable beneath all kinds of strain, not _delicate_ in any sense of the word. But they cannot protect Keith from this. This is a battle that they won’t win. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers a final time, pulling his hand out of hers as he steps away. He doesn’t meet her eyes again, as her hands find their way back down to her sides, as he turns away from her completely. He walks down the hallway until she is out of sight, ignoring her calls after him until they are just a mesh of sounds with no meaning to be found within them. And then, when he is sure that there are no longer any eyes on him, he _runs._

  
  


_____

  
  


On the day Keith plans to leave for the last time, Black reaccepts Shiro as her paladin. He sees this as a sign that he is doing the right thing, no matter how that awful feeling in his chest seems to only expand every time he thinks about it for too long. Which is all the time, lately. 

_It’s fate,_ he tells himself, _it has to be. Nothing else makes sense._ Except, when he’s standing in front of all of his irate teammates, trying to make them understand this, he finds that they’re all a lot less willing to accept this brand of reasoning. In Pidge’s words, it is “absolute bullshit.” 

“If there’s a bright side to any of this,” he tries anyway, but beneath all of their stares and disappointed frowns he finds that he doesn’t even sound convincing to himself, “it’s that my absence allowed Shiro to reestablish his bond with the Black lion. He can finally be the leader that I was unable to be—” 

It hurts more than he had thought it would be to say it; he has to remind himself: _this is what you wanted._ He knows that it’s right, but that doesn’t stop it from _feeling_ wrong. There’s this building pressure in his chest like his heart is about to burst, and he doesn’t know how he’s meant to convince himself that the world isn’t ending. _The world isn’t ending._

“Stop making excuses for yourself,” Allura is the one who snaps, eyes blazing with fury as she angles herself in front of the others, as if to shield them from the conversation. “Keith, just because Black let Shiro in out of sheer _desperation_ during one battle does _not_ mean that you get to take this as your—your _proof_ that you are no longer needed or wanted here. What you _should_ be doing is taking this moment to realize that you need to _step up_ for your team. Quit the Blade and come _back_ to us _,_ Keith. Do you _truly_ believe your leaving is going to solve more problems than it causes? It _won’t.”_

She is shouting at him, unconcentrated rage not only in the volume of her voice but in the twist of her features, in the way she splays her hands as if it is the only way she can truly express her frustration with him. At her sides, Keith can see the others growing uneasy as they exchange looks; Hunk opens his mouth, begins uncertainly, “Allura, I’m not sure if—” 

_“You_ are the one who isn’t seeing things clearly, Allura,” Keith talks over him, his voice almost raised to Allura’s level but not quite. He feels this rising despair at how this isn’t going according to the script, how this isn’t how it’s supposed to _be._ Allura is not supposed to fight him like this. She’s supposed to have realized by now that Keith isn’t worth it; she’s supposed to let him _go._ “Even _Shiro_ agrees with me. He said it himself, I’m not cut out to be the black paladin—maybe I never was. Either way, an easy and _sensible_ solution has presented itself, so why can’t you _just—”_

This time, Keith is the one who is cut off. But it isn’t by Allura. “Shiro said _what.”_

All eyes—including Keith’s—fall immediately to Lance. 

Lance is the one person Keith hasn’t been able to bring himself to look at from the moment he walked onto the bridge. He’s the one whose reactions Keith was most _afraid_ of seeing—but more than that, Keith is afraid because he knows that if he looks at him for long enough, it will be all but impossible to make himself leave. He’s barely been able to think of Lance at all lately without feeling like he’s going to break down again; looking at him now is no different. 

Compared to the others—to Allura’s anger, Pidge’s and Hunk’s incredulity and upset—Lance’s face appears to be a near-perfect expression of placidity. It takes a trained eye to notice the minute details: the slight downward tug at the corner of his mouth that could _almost_ be natural; the single degree of a changed contour to his jaw that, if you didn’t spend all of your time studying his face, you would never be able to identify as tension. But to Keith, who probably knows Lance’s face better than his own, it takes no effort to figure out what Lance is feeling. He’s _furious._

But unlike Allura, none of that fury is directed to Keith at all; every iota of it is trained onto Shiro with the laser focus normally reserved only for the battlefield, for _sniping._ A fragment of a thought floats into Keith’s head and swiftly back out: _if looks could kill—_

And then there is Shiro. Shiro, who, throughout most of this exchange, has managed to remain relatively neutral despite being the hot source of debate. Now, though, his smooth expression breaks just enough to show a thin layer of defensiveness right below it as he looks from Keith to Lance to everyone else. “I never said that,” he protests, shaking his head. “I never said that I thought Keith wasn’t _cut out_ to be the black paladin.” 

“You did.” Keith looks at him, shaking his own head in question: _what are you doing?_ “You don’t have to try to defend yourself to them, Shiro. You’re _right._ It’s too much for me, I’m just going to keep messing up—that’s all I know how to _do._ You told me to think about the team and so I _did;_ you know that this is how it has to be. Tell them that I’m _right. Tell them,_ Shiro.” 

When Shiro’s name stops ringing out, a charged silence takes its place. Static electricity takes the place of the sound of their exhales; when they inhale, they breath in the sparks of each other’s emotions. And there is anger (Allura, Lance), and there is distress (Hunk, Coran), and there is bewilderment (Pidge). There is Shiro staring back at him, sadness warring with agreement, agreement warring with hesitation. But the overarching feeling in the room is simple. Everyone (himself and Shiro excluded) is stunned. 

Stunned by what Keith’s said; stunned by the fact that, verbatim or not, _Shiro_ had been the one to initially say those things. Stunned by this conversation that they’re having, stunned that they’ve found themselves here, stunned that Keith is _leaving_ them. 

In this silence, Keith wonders if he should take the opening and try, one more time, to make them _get_ it. To tell them that he understands that they’re upset, but that after a while they won’t even notice he’s gone. And that’s how it _should_ be. If they forget about him now, they’ll never wonder about him later. That’s how Keith _wants_ it to be. Don’t they understand? 

But right as he’s getting ready to open his mouth—chaos unleashes. 

Suddenly everyone is yelling; Allura is whirling, finger pointed at Shiro’s chest as she accuses: “This is all _your fault—”_ and the others are quick to follow, torn between shouting at Shiro and turning to demand from Keith: “Why would he _say_ that to you?”; “Shiro, what were you _thinking,_ what the _hell, man?”;_ “Keith, he’s _wrong,_ he’s _wrong_ don’t listen to him, you’re a _great_ leader—” and Keith gets lost in the sounds until his head is spinning, because it’s too _loud_ and everyone is fighting and this isn’t supposed to be _happening._ This isn’t _right._ They shouldn’t be fighting like this; he _never_ intended to make them fight like this, not over _him._ He wants to tell them to _stop,_ because he isn’t worth this and he doesn’t want his last moment as part of Voltron to be him tearing them apart. He wants to tell them that they’re doing this _wrong,_ but in all of the noise, he thinks that if he was somehow able to open his mouth, nothing he said would be heard anyway. 

It’s a terrible thing to watch the people he loves most in the universe tear into each other like this, knowing that _he_ is the root cause of it. Knowing that all of this is _his_ fault. _What have I done?_ he asks himself again, the guilt ballooning inside of him so quickly that it’s nearly _crushing._

It’s the guilt that tells him, as he backs out of the room unnoticed, that maybe leaving them is the right thing, but leaving them like _this?_ It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s _wrong._ It pulses in time with his heart in his chest, the blood rushing in his ears that he can only hear when the doors fall shut behind him, silencing his friends’—if he even deserves to call them that, now—arguing. 

But what else can he do? He feels like if he sticks around, they’re never going to get out of this endless loop of trying to convince him to stay. They’re just going to keep _fighting,_ and already Keith can’t _breathe_ from it, the balloon of guilt now so large that it has his lungs pressed directly against his ribs, and Keith is almost certain that lungs aren’t meant to feel like this. 

He just has to make it out. That’s _all_ he has to do—

_“Keith._ Keith, _wait.”_

That balloon punctures at once, speared effortlessly and remorselessly by dread. _No._

But his feet come to halt so quickly that it’s a wonder steam doesn’t emit from the soles of his shoes, his own heart going silent in his ears as it is replaced by the sound of a second pair of footsteps rushing after him. He closes his eyes. _No,_ he thinks, desperation welling up alongside dread, _no, this isn’t—_

“Keith,” Lance says again when he’s only a handful of feet from him; Keith can’t look at him, _won’t._ “What are you thinking?” he asks. But whereas Allura had made the question into an accusation, Lance’s is just that—a question. _What are you thinking, Keith? I just want to understand._

Anger has always been Keith’s last resort: it’s the card he plays when he feels he’s been backed into a corner, when he feels like he has no other way to protect himself, or when he feels like it’s the only way to get his point across. It’s a defense mechanism he’d favored all throughout high school because he had never been _allowed_ to get angry before then, but he’d never particularly _enjoyed_ the feeling. It was better than feeling empty, but not when it was misdirected at the people who didn’t deserve it—Shiro and Adam, namely. (There hadn’t been anyone else, and even if there had been, they still would have been the only ones willing to put up with his shit for as long as they did. _It’s a wonder Shiro even held out for seven years,_ he thinks bitterly.) 

Lance doesn’t deserve his anger. But Keith curls his hands into fists at his sides and pours it onto him anyway. 

“Don’t act like you don’t know _exactly_ what I’m thinking, Lance. We both knew that this was going to happen. If I stay here, I’m just going to keep fucking things up, and one of these days, someone is going to get _hurt_ because of me. And I can’t get better—that night with Red wasn’t an isolated event, Lance, that’s how I am _all the time._ Is _that_ the kind of person you really want leading your team? Someone who can barely _function_ half the time, and the other half is too busy trying to destroy himself to do the things that are expected of him?” His chest is heaving with the effort to keep everything from collapsing; hands shaking, voice breaking when he says, “Don’t tell me you’re foolish enough to believe that would end well for _anybody.”_

“Keith . . .” Lance is even closer now, near enough that Keith can _feel_ his presence at his back, radiating through the space that still remains between them. His voice is right in Keith’s ear when he says, gentle but unbending, “Your excuses might work on the others, but I don’t believe it. What’s the _real_ reason?” 

“That is—that _is_ the real reason,” Keith stammers out, his lungs playing a game of stop-and-go. The space between them is a _living_ thing, and he can’t help the involuntary, traitorous deluge of pleas that rise up in him: _touch me, just pull me close and hold me, don’t let me go,_ please _don’t let go, Lance—_

“What happened to not wanting to be alone?” Lance asks him, so softly that it’s barely a stir of wind against the shell of his ear; he’s so _close_ to him and Keith wants to cry because he _can’t,_ he can’t be here, he can’t stay and _listen_ to him. But he can’t _move._ “Keith, I _know_ you don’t want to leave. And whatever bullshit Shiro tried to tell you about thinking about the team shouldn’t make you feel like you _have_ to. We’re more than _just_ Voltron—we’re your family. You’ve always been here when we needed you, so _why_ do you think we won’t do the same for you? Why do you think you don’t have a choice, Keith?” 

Keith bites his lip against the shudder that courses through him, feeling a familiar heat steadily rising behind his eyes. “There _isn’t_ a choice, Lance. Not a real one. Because—because right _now_ you’re here, but you’re going to hate me. If I stay here, you’ll start to hate me, and I _can’t—_ I don’t want to watch it happen. So. Tell me what the choice is, there.” 

For a moment, Lance says nothing. It’s just the sound of their breathing in this empty corridor, and Keith opens his eyes to stare into the blue lights just so he has a distraction from wondering what the expression on Lance’s face is, right now. 

And then he feels more than hears Lance sigh, this barely-audible huff of air. “Keith, that’s crazy,” he says. 

“It’s not,” Keith replies thickly, throat _aching_ with the words. “It’s not, I _know_ it’s true. You’re going to hate me and I—I won’t be able to stop it from happening. I can’t _stop_ it—” 

And there it is: Lance finally, _finally,_ reaches for him, his fingers curling around the crook of his arm, five points of _searing_ contact that steal the last of the air from his lungs. He tugs gently until Keith complies, letting himself be turned to face him even though he _knows_ he shouldn’t. He should be fighting him, he should be _fighting—_

All of the anger from the bridge is gone, is the first thought Keith has when his eyes inevitably fall on Lance. It’s replaced with something careful, eyes betraying how delicate he knows this situation is, even though when he speaks, there’s nothing but certainty. “I don’t know where you got the idea that I could ever hate you. For any reason,” he says slowly. His hand is still resting on Keith’s arm and it’s nearly the only thing he can think about. He has to force himself to remember how to speak, to answer in a whisper, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Lance.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Lance says, intentionally dismissive, but before Keith can even register that he’s supposed to argue with that, he’s going on, “I know _enough._ I know that you love every member of Team Voltron enough that you would die for any of us in a second without a moment’s hesitation. I know you never _wanted_ to be the black paladin, but you took it on anyway because we needed you, even though it _killed_ you to think for a moment that you were taking Shiro’s place. I know that you’re the one who keeps Hunk company when he’s too afraid of feeling like a burden to ask. You’re the only person Allura ever goes to with her problems; God knows Pidge wouldn’t get _any_ sleep if it weren’t for you. You think you’ve been failing but you’re the only reason why any of us genuinely _believe_ we can win this war, because you are the one who tells us we’re strong enough to face anything as long as we stay together.” Lance’s eyes are glimmering, and it could just be a trick of the light playing in the blue of his eyes, but Keith knows that it isn’t. 

“You’re scared of a lot of things, but I’ve never seen you _once_ back down in the face of them. You told me that you would take on Zarkon all on your own if it meant that I’ll get to go home someday. You remind me constantly that I’m important to the team because _somehow_ you figured out about my inferiority issues, and you won’t let me be alone with them because you’re so fucking _thoughtful_ when it comes to everyone but yourself. You never give yourself a break because you feel like you don’t deserve them even though you push yourself a thousand times harder than _any_ of us, and I know that somewhere, at _some_ point in your life, there must have been someone who made you feel like you don’t deserve to be loved. But you _do,”_ Lance’s voice cracks the way Keith _knew_ was coming; and he tries, he _does,_ but it is so hard to fight against the prickling of his own eyes when Lance is crying. He clenches his fists in a last-ditch attempt to hold it together, but he’s two seconds away from falling apart and he knows that Lance can see it. He _knows,_ but it doesn’t stop him from pressing it even further, because he _knows_ he has the upper hand now; he holds all of Keith’s attention. 

“I’m so fucking in love with you that sometimes, I don’t know what to _do_ with myself. And it doesn’t even matter if you never love me back, because I know there’s never going to be _anyone_ else. I would be content to spend the rest of my life following you to the ends of the universe as long as I knew that I could still be _with_ you, however you wanted me. As long as I knew you were still _here.”_ The storm has unleashed now, with his voice crackling like thunder and a rain of tears slicking his skin, and he makes no effort to hide them from Keith, makes no movement to wipe a single one of them away. And that alone is enough to split Keith’s heart open, but Lance _still_ isn’t done. He looks away from Keith’s face just long enough to watch his hand slide down Keith’s arm to his hand, uncurling both of his fists to wrap his hands around them. 

“Sometimes I have these dreams where you die,” he whispers, his own breath catching in the lull between words, but it goes unnoticed by both of them. Keith is looking at their hands and Lance is looking at _him,_ and there is nothing left but them and the uncertainty of where this is going to lead. “These _awful_ nightmares, and I wake up with this sick feeling in my chest every time because they feel so _real_ . And I’m always so terrified, because I can never be sure that I’m going to see you in the morning. It keeps me up all night sometimes, thinking about how if I _had_ to, I could live without you. But I don’t _want_ to. I don’t ever want to wake up one day and you just be _gone,_ Keith.” 

He takes this deep, shuddering breath, and Keith can feel it as if he’s breathing it into him. Can feel it echoing through him, shoulders rising and falling with the wave of it, his vision going blurry around the edges from the force of it. 

“And I don’t want you to go, because I have that same sick feeling now, like—like if you do leave, I’m never going to see you again. But if . . . if it’s really what you _want,_ I know I can’t stop you.” Something compels Keith to look up at him, again, at that; he immediately wishes that he hadn’t. There’s this terrible, wobbling line of what Keith thinks is meant to be a smile fighting itself into place, but it looks so unnatural and _hopeless_ that it’s become grotesque. “If it’s what you want, then I won’t try to fight you. I won’t beg you to stay. And I’ll support you, because that’s—that’s what I _do._ Whatever you do, I’m always going to have your back. But I’m just going to ask you for one thing, Keith, before I let you go.” 

“What?” Keith whispers. He’s blinking the heat from his eyes, shedding it in the way a snake sheds its skin, and like Lance’s tears, it goes silently. 

Lance abandons his effort to smile through them, but the look that takes its place is only marginally better. It’s the grave seriousness reserved for battle, the sort of look he takes on when innocent lives are on the line. He isn’t playing around. Before he even asks, Keith has the sinking suspicion that what Lance is about to ask him is going to be impossible to deliver. 

And then, “Look me in the eye and _mean it,”_ he says, so softly that you almost wouldn’t think it was a demand. “Tell me that you want to leave. I don’t want the last thing you say to me to be a lie, Keith.” 

“That—” _That’s not fair,_ springs immediately to Keith’s tongue, but he bites down on it before it can dive to its death. He knows that he’s been unfair, too. Leaving like this is unfair. Lance always being there for him and him leaving without being able to explain why— _that_ is unfair. But he still looks at Lance, silently pleading, _please don’t make me do this._ Lance’s expression doesn’t change: stoical, expectant, _challenging. I dare you, Keith. I dare you to do it._

“I—”

Here is someone who has put his entire heart on the line in the unadorned hope that Keith will just _stay._ Someone asking him not to go, not for himself, but because he believes that what Keith wants should _matter._ Lance had called him thoughtful, but the truth is that _he_ is the most self-sacrificial of all the paladins. Here he is, ready to have everything he’s done for Keith disregarded, everything he’s said, everything he _feels_ crushed because of _Keith’s_ choices. 

He recalls, then, what Allura had said when he went to talk to her. _If you leave, everyone will be devastated._ He’s not so sure about everyone, but _is_ sure, suddenly, that _Lance_ will be. More than any of the others, Lance will be the one who takes the blame on himself. He’ll feel like there’s more he should have done, something else he should have said. He’ll wonder where he went wrong. 

And the one thing he’s asking for is for Keith to not lie to him, and Keith _should be able_ to give him at least that much. He _wants_ to be able to give him that; knows that if he can’t, it’s like admitting that Lance’s emotions don’t matter to him. And that’s the _farthest_ thing from the truth, because Keith _loves_ him and he wants to be able to tell him that, _wishes_ that he could, but everything he wants to say is caught in his throat, choking on nothing. 

“I—I _want—”_ he forces instead, roughly enough that it scrapes like sandpaper against his tongue. And he’s trying to remember all of his reasons, everything that made _sense_ when he was compiling evidence against why he should stay, but he’d specifically left Lance out of the files, because he _knew_ that Lance would be able to cut through all of them like they consisted of nothing more than paper. 

What he wants has never been an important factor in any of Keith’s decisions because most of the time, it’s never really been one of the options. His sense of self-preservation runs deep, but _want_ has never played any part in it. Life has never been about wanting, for him. It’s such a foreign concept that he wouldn’t even know what to ask for, if he knew what he _did_ want. 

But he’s always known how to identify what he _doesn’t_ want. It’s the reason why now, the words he knows he _has_ to say fizzle in his mouth, sparking with their dying breath as he falters on sob instead. But Lance doesn’t let up because of it, still waiting so _patiently_ for an answer, even though he already knows that he has him. 

_He has him._ It’s the knowledge of defeat that leaves Keith shaking his head, everything he cannot say transmitting through the way he looks at Lance, the silent way he all but confesses: _what do I do, then? What am I supposed to DO?_

Lance answers not in words himself, but in the seamless way he pulls Keith into him, arms coming up to catch around him. The way he stops Keith from stumbling as he curves into him, making himself smaller against his side, breath snagging in the moment his forehead comes to rest on his shoulder. 

_We’re going to figure it out,_ says the hand that comes to rest lightly at the back of his head, says the hand pressed to the small of his back, steady even through the shudders breaking like waves along his spine. _It’s going to be okay,_ says the steady push and pull of Lance’s own breaths, carrying to him the reminder to keep breathing, himself. And finally, a whisper against the top of his head, a susurrus of everything Keith wants to hear and everything he knows that he doesn’t deserve: “I love you; I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. We’re both staying right here.” 

That night, Keith calls Kolivan to let him know that he won’t be coming on the mission. He stammers through the whole thing, the guilt in his chest itching with protest, screaming: _you are making a mistake._ But he could almost swear that by the end, Kolivan looks relieved. “Take care of yourself, Blade,” is the last thing he says to him before disconnecting the call; it leaves Keith alone on the empty bridge, stuck with the silence and his fingers twitching on the _call back_ button. 

He wonders if he’s supposed to feel relieved, himself; wonders if the guilt he feels will fade with time, or if it will be the permanent reminder of his weakness. He hopes, prays to whoever or whatever might be out there listening: _please don’t let this be another thing I chose wrong._

The silence doesn’t offer any answers up to him, so he sits there on the steps and stares out of the windows that take up the front of the room. And he asks himself a new question: _did I do the right thing?_

Only time will tell, he supposes. Once again, Keith finds that he is a spectator of his own life, wondering what the cosmic forces that hold his deck are going to unleash on him next. And he really hates to think that maybe he wasn’t the one who made this decision to stay at all, and maybe it’s something larger at work, lining things up just so that they can be knocked out from under him once again. But it’s not far off from how life has played out for him so far, and he doesn’t think he would be all that surprised if that’s exactly how the rest of it is going to go. 

But Keith is far too tired to care about it, tonight. With no desire to return to his cold bed and a mind full of dreams-turned-nightmares, he stays and watches the stars float past until the castle passes through a patch of empty black space, where it will remain for the rest of the night. He stares out into it and imagines that if he continues to stare for long enough, eventually the darkness will grow strong enough to rise up and fold him into it for good. 


	5. taking flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe he really is just stubbornly, blindly reckless when it comes to anything that presents itself to him as love; and maybe, because there is, inexplicably, still a childish part of him that’s immortalized in hope, he’s always going to believe that the thing being held out to him is sugar instead of salt. 
> 
> But maybe, maybe this time, that’s okay. Because maybe this time, it actually is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm beginning to think that all of my chapters just hate me. sorry for making you wait like, a month. the good news is, this chapter isn't as heavy as the others so far!! there is some fluff here, if you wait until the end and then squint really hard. 
> 
> also, please note that i'm bumping the rating up. nothing very dark happens in this chapter, but i got to thinking and i really think the overall theme here just...calls for it. because it's going to get a lot darker before we get to the "comfort" part of the hurt/comfort tag. so please, please just be conscious of the trigger warnings as we go along, and remember to practice self-care while reading. stay safe, guys <3

The rumbling of the black lion is a soft presence when he enters the hangar. It fills the room with the same level of potency as the purple light emitting from her particle barrier. In Keith’s mind, the sentiment she is trying to push through to him reads very clear—louder than the dull ringing in his own ears. He doesn’t understand it, because from the very beginning their relationship has been nothing but stiff and turbulent, but he knows without an iota of doubt that it is true. The lions don’t lie. 

_Glad you’re back,_ she’s rumbling, unmistakable as she wraps her relief around his mind in that strange way the lions speak: in minced words, relying on sentiments to convey what fails to reach them in broken English. _Glad you are still here._

“But why?” Keith whispers, aloud, to her. He takes a step further into the room, and he’s standing right on the edge of the light now. It’s the first time he’s come to see her since the last battle he fought as part of Voltron; the first time since he decided to stay. But he’s heard her calling to him every day, growing louder and more intense the longer he ignored her. 

He’d come here prepared to be chewed out. He thought, because lately he’s felt like everyone else _must_ be reaching the peak of their limits when it comes to offering him patience, that she must be more ready than all of them to let him know how she feels about his recent behavior. And that’s aside from the fact that Keith had said some unforgivable things about her to Shiro.

_Forgivable,_ she says in his mind, chiding without crossing into the realm of malice. The closest Keith can describe it, though because of his lack of personal experience he has no way of knowing whether it’s accurate or not, is the voice of a mother lightly scolding her child for doing something foolish. _Come,_ she tells him—a request, an invitation, nowhere near a demand. 

And so Keith does. Steadier than he’s felt in days, he approaches as she lowers her jaw to the floor, letting him in. The light that guides his steps to her cockpit is almost comforting when he thinks of how close he came to never seeing it again. 

“I don’t get it,” he confesses as he takes his seat, settling into it and drawing his knees into his chest. He feels like a child like this, small and unsafe. As soon as the thought enters his head, Black sends a wave of warmth and assurance over him; Keith gives himself a rare break and sinks into it. “Why aren’t you mad? I’ve been—I mean, you know how bad I’ve been. I’ve treated you terribly. I’m an awful black paladin.” 

_Not,_ she chides again. Her voice is a hum around him now, enveloping all parts of his mind. But she isn’t stopping to look, isn’t trying to pry things open. She’s patient; it’s one of the things, ironically, that’s always pushed him away from her. It’s so unlike Red, and even himself. She takes her time and trusts that others will meet her halfway—even when she knows that, more often than not, others will fail to meet those expectations. 

_You are not bad,_ she repeats firmly, and Keith understands at once by the pressed emotion in the words that she’s talking about more than one thing—even if he doesn’t _want_ to understand. And he doesn’t want to understand. He doesn’t want to talk about that. 

_You are hurting, but it is not your fault,_ she says. _It is the dreams._

Keith is so taken aback that, for a moment, he forgets to feel frustrated that she’s trying to take the conversation in that direction. But then comes comprehension, and alongside it an unlikely companion— _confusion._

“I—you _know_ about my dreams? But then why—why haven’t you ever . . .” He swallows down the bitter question before it can surface on his tongue, but he knows she hears it anyway. _Why haven’t you ever stopped them from coming?_

Really, Keith thinks that it’s less the fact that Black knows about his dreams that takes him by surprise, and more the fact that she’s openly _admitting_ it. In some part of his mind, Keith already knew that she was aware of them—how could she not be? She’s _always_ in his head—but until now, it’s been something that neither of them has ever brought up. They don’t _talk_ about it, and it’s better that way, because if they did then it would mean having a conversation about how unfit he is to be her paladin. If he can’t even _sleep,_ how could she ever trust him to be competent in battle? 

Of course, Keith supposes that all of his choices lately have proven those fears right, anyway. There’s no use in avoiding it now. 

Still—he can’t help the sting of hurt that he feels, having it acknowledged so unapologetically. Black has known this entire time, and she’s done _nothing._ It feels like an open admission of her rejection, and he knows it’s stupid to be hurt by that when he’d rejected her first, but it _does_ hurt. And again, he wonders why she hasn’t just shut him out already. _Why, when we both know I don’t deserve to be here?_

Black rumbles again, and this time, it’s infused with the same sort of sentiment as a sigh. Tired and a little bit sad; it reminds Keith achingly of Shiro, and he remembers that his brother and Black were undoubtedly very close before, in the way that all of the paladins and their lions were. It makes him realize, suddenly, how much the two of them have in common. It’s a revelation accompanied by a pang in his heart, and it leaves in its aftermath a guilt-tinged sadness. 

_No,_ Black says, the single word packed with so many tangled sentiments that Keith can’t tell a single one from another. It’s overwhelming, and he thinks she must figure that out because she pulls back, drawing everything back into herself before she tries to speak to him again. This time, the words are careful, almost clinical: _You do not understand. I have never rejected you. I will not. You must let me explain._

Keith swallows the lump in his throat, tightens his hold on his knees, and stares with too-dry eyes at the floor, pitch-black where Black’s light fails to reach it. “Fine.” 

Silence falls, drifts around them for a long time. Keith closes his eyes and rests his head against the padded back of the chair while she thinks, and by the time she speaks again, he’s almost lost himself in the rare bliss of an empty mind. 

_Red captured dreams,_ she begins, such a soft whisper against a background of even softer silence. It’s as loud in his head as if she was speaking directly into his ear. _She held them for you because she did not know what else to do. She felt guilty, and your pain saddened her—just as it saddened us all. We told her that it was not right, but she disagreed. She thought she was doing the best thing for you. Understand that she just wanted to protect you._

“Wait,” Keith says, but the mention of Red swells the lump in his throat to an aching, irritated mass of grief, making it nearly impossible to speak. “What do you mean— _all_ of you? Does—does that mean—?” 

_The lions share burdens of our paladins. It is impossible to hide things from each other._

Keith’s heart plummets into the pit of his stomach, where a shock of sudden fear freezes it. He can hardly choke out the words—“Have they— _told—?”_

_No. Lions keep secrets. They will not tell the other paladins._ A pause, and Keith barely has a moment to calm his panicked pulse before she tells him: _but you should._

“What?” Keith shifts his gaze from the floor to the shuttered windows that act as her eyes when she flies, as if he’ll be able to read her emotions there in the current blankness. “Absolutely _not,_ Black. I can’t.” 

_You must,_ she gently corrects. _You cannot ignore forever. The only way to heal is to tell._

“Who said anything about healing?” Keith bites, unconscious of his nails digging into the knees of his jeans until the threads begin to tear loose. “You should give that idea up, Black. It’s too late for that. It’s been too long. The only thing I can hope for now is that I’ll be numb by the time it kills me.” 

_That is not true. It does not have to kill you._ Black’s immovable conviction is a strange juxtaposition to the careful way she delivers it, to the compassion that Keith can’t quite bring himself to fight against. Maybe another day he would, but he’s tired of fighting with Black. The entire reason why he came to see her was because he’s tired of fighting her. 

“Can we just . . . not? I don’t want to talk about this. Not right now.” 

_Then when?_ she challenges. _You never want to talk. You shut down whenever I try. I am sorry I tried to force you, and I am even more sorry that I cannot take your pain from you. But if you allow me, I can help you to find your own healing. I can listen._

“Except you _could_ take it away,” Keith argues. He can feel frustration and anger coiling in his otherwise empty chest, twining around desperation until it emerges as something vicious and snarling, “You could do the same exact thing that Red did. You could block the—the _memories,_ and the feelings and the dreams, or at the _very least_ the fucking migraines. It can’t be _that_ hard, if she did it all the time. So it’s not that you can’t, it’s that you _won’t,_ and you _aren’t_ sorry, so don’t—don’t try to lie and say that you care when you _don’t.”_

He doesn’t remember jumping to his feet, but by the time he finishes shouting at Black he’s standing—barely. On shaking legs, with curled fists, realizing at once how _crazy_ he must seem to her. How crazy he feels now, how he’s _losing his mind_ and all he can do is sit back and watch it happen, or stand on trembling legs and watch it happen, or sink to his knees with his head in his hands and watch it happen—as if he’s observing it all from someplace outside of himself. He can’t feel the floor beneath him. He can’t feel his nails scraping the palms of his hands until they’re red and nearly bleeding. 

But he can feel Black, her strange manner of comforting that is nothing like Red’s balmy and familiar heat. _This is why I cannot,_ she says. _Look at what trying to ignore it is doing to you._

Keith closes his eyes as if that will be enough to block her out; he doesn’t want to consider that maybe she’s right. He _won’t._

Black says, _I think you should talk to the blue one. The now-red one._ And there’s a moment in the quiet that follows, a moment of stunned stillness where Keith nearly laughs. Because _surely,_ Black is joking, now: a poor attempt to lighten the mood. Surely she isn’t _serious._ _Surely . . ._

“Lance is the _last_ person I would talk to about this,” he says, instead of releasing the bubble of humorless laughter at the back of his throat. His heart has finally unfrozen from that pit in his stomach, only to rise back up to pound, dangerously erratic, at the base of his ribs. “Lance can _never know,_ Black. I can’t tell him.” 

_Why not?_ she asks. And Keith wants to say: _isn’t that a loaded question._ And he wants to demand: _why don’t you just look inside my head and take the answer for yourself?_ But at once all of the frustration that was fueling him fizzles out, leaving only a cold, detached bitterness behind. 

“He already has to put up with so much of my shit,” he says, voice hollow. “And somehow, despite _all_ of it, he said that he loves me. And I think—I think that he _really meant it,_ Black.” He blinks eyes dry as desert soil at his still-clenched fists, and discovers that he can feel them again. They ache from the tension he’s forced into them, and when he releases them, the unfurling aches just as much. 

“He’s . . . everything I’ve ever wanted,” Keith whispers, and here is a feeling other than bitterness, carving out a familiar space for itself in his chest again. “If he knew—” The words cut themselves off in his mouth, terror at the mere consideration halting his tongue. He presses his lips together, and when he’s gathered himself back into some semblance of steady, he tries again. “Who would stay, Black? If—if he _knew_ how messed up I really am . . . he wouldn’t— _how_ could he still want me, after that? He couldn’t. And I—I know it’s selfish of me, but I don’t want him to _leave._ For _once,_ I just want someone who loves me—someone who, who _I_ love—to stay. So I can’t tell him, Black. I can’t lose him right now.” 

For a long moment, there’s no reaction from the black lion. And then, a quiet ripple of incredulity, floating up as if she tried to keep it down for as long as she could. _He would never leave you. He promised. You have to have more faith in him._

His anger makes a valiant attempt to resurrect itself—but it doesn’t even make it out of the grave before it collapses in on itself again. “Don’t preach to me about faith, Black,” he says tiredly. “It’s easy to make promises like that when you don’t know what you’re really signing up for.” 

Black doesn’t try to hide her rumble of discontent; after a moment of tense silence, the guilt finally begins to catch up to him again. “Look, I’m sorry. I know . . . I _know_ that you’re trying to help. And I don’t want to fight with you.” 

_No fighting,_ she agrees, but Keith can still sense her disquiet. And he knows if he tries to ignore it, it’s just going to lead to more tension and problems between the two of them—two things that he wants to _avoid._ But the problem is, nothing he can say will appease her. He can’t do what she wants, and he won’t apologize for it. 

So he switches tactics. With a sigh, he uncurls his legs from beneath him to stretch them out in front of him, shifting back until he can lean against the base of her console. “I know you don’t agree, but I really mean it when I say talking about it isn’t going to do anything. I mean I—I tried that already. Back on Earth, I tried going to a therapist and it . . . well. It just made things worse. And, and anyway, Shiro knows some of it. Not everything, but . . . but _enough._ Doesn’t that count for something?” 

Black goes silent again, this time for long enough that Keith begins to feel uneasy. When she finally does answer him, it doesn’t make him feel any better. _Shiro is . . . strange, lately. He feels distant and—different, somehow. I cannot explain. I do not think he is good for talking, now._

Her words stir up that unease within him into something murky and nearly tangible—something deep enough to give him reservations about wading into it. But he asks anyway, because despite all his efforts he’s never been good at leaving things alone. “So are . . . are you saying I can’t trust him anymore?” 

_Not exactly._ Black, sensing his anxiety, tries to amend. _Just . . . he is struggling, too. Something is wrong, but he will not talk about it. Like you, he won’t be better until he talks._

“So that’s your prescription, huh,” Keith replies dryly. “Just talk, and everything will magically fix itself?” 

_It is not magic. But it will help. It will help you to heal._

“Yeah, well,” he says, closing his eyes as a new wave of exhaustion builds up in his limbs, readying itself to crash down on him. He’s tired of going in circles with Black, and he’s even more tired of the constant reminder that there’s nothing that can be done to simply _fix_ this. Because in spite of all his wishes, there is nothing that he, or Black, or Shiro, or _anyone_ can do to erase the past. “It’s like I said before, Black. You might as well just give up. Because it’s too late.” 

He can feel Black’s discontent simmering again, just below the surface of acknowledgment. But for once, she doesn’t try to push the boundaries, and for once, Keith finds himself grateful to her. In some distant part of his mind, he knows that this discussion is far from over, at least to her. And he’s going to have to deal with that later, whenever she decides is the best time to start pushing him again. 

But for now, he is content (and she is, at least, willing) to put everything to the side, curl up to sit in the foreign comfort of her companionship, and pretend that there is nothing more to talk about. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_There is dirt beneath his bare soles; there is dirt in his lungs. It aches, it burns like the scorch of the sun from above, and he thinks to himself:_ I can’t keep going. I can’t, I can’t— 

_He’s going to lose again. As always, he is going to lose, and whoever gets him this time is going to win, and there’s no escaping that so_ why _is he still running? He can’t remember. He asks himself:_ why am I still running? 

_And he is_ so _tired: his throat feels like it’s coated in sand, and his ankles keep twisting on nothing, and now he can hear their voices behind them, growing louder as the distance closes. Saying:_

“Without me, you have _no one,_ Keith—” 

_Saying:_

“Look at you, aren’t you such a pretty boy?”

_Saying:_

“Do you really want to be taken away from the only people who care about you?” 

_And he can’t quite match the voices to the faces, but it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? Who cares_ who _catches him, in the end? It doesn’t even matter, because in the end they’re just going to leave him here in this vast wasteland to die anyway. He asks himself again:_ why am I still running? 

_He thinks about stopping. He thinks that he just wants it to be over. Maybe he can just finally lay down here, let the sun scorch the skin from his bones and leave him in the sand. Or maybe, if he has the strength left for it, he could pierce himself on the spine of a barrel cactus and let the poison stop his heart for him. Expedite the process. He could—_

“Keith. Keith, can you hear me?” 

_Keith does stop, then, feet freezing as he tries to identify this new voice. It’s somehow familiar but he can’t place who it belongs to; it isn’t coming from behind him. He can still hear the footsteps—the survivalist part of his brain is still urging him to move, he needs to move_ now, _but—_

“Keith. I’m here. I’m right here. Just come here—I will keep you safe. Follow my voice.” 

_It’s a trap, his brain screams at him. Don’t listen to it, don’t follow it, you have to keep running,_ go, _before it catches you too—_

_But then:_

“You don’t have to be alone anymore, Keith.” 

You don’t have to be alone. _Where has he heard that before? He_ knows _this voice, he knows—_

_He looks up into the sky, desperately hoping to find the answer written there. But it’s too bright, too blindingly brilliant to see anything over the blue, there isn’t anything else there but—_

_Blue._

_Blue, like—_

_“Lance!” Keith shouts, spins on his heel, but there is nothing but desert in all four directions. “Lance,_ where are you?” 

“I’m here. I’m _right here,_ Keith.” 

_But he_ isn’t; _there is_ nothing _here, nothing but the cloud of dust on the horizon and the continuous thunder. Keith can feel a sob building in his throat but he chokes it back—_ you don’t get to cry, _he remembers—and tries again. “WHERE ARE YOU?”_

_He takes a step back, paying no mind to the scrub brush that stabs into his foot like a thousand tiny needles, calling out:_ “Lance—” 

_His back hits something solid, and his lungs freeze as a hand settles onto his shoulder. He knows without having to look that the hand does not belong to Lance; he looks anyway, and sure enough, he finds nails as long and menacing as talons, each filed to a perfect point, each the glossy, deep red of freshly spilled blood._

“Oh, dear. _Look_ at how dirty you are. What are we ever going to do with you?” 

  
  


_____

  
  


On the morning after Keith almost left, Allura insisted they have a conversation about Voltron’s structure moving forward. She had not been the only one to agree that it would perhaps be in Keith’s best interest to take a break from Voltron, but she had been the one to propose it. “Just for the time being, Keith,” she‘d said, and Keith thinks it was supposed to be reassuring, but there had been a certain dark glint in her eyes that told him there was more that she wasn’t saying. 

_Just until we know what’s going on with you,_ is what she didn’t say. But she also didn’t bring up the night he had come to her door, even though he had been almost certain that she would, and he was grateful for that. Whatever else she had to say, she wouldn’t interrogate him under the others’ microscopic gazes. 

And though it had stung, there was a part of him that knew she was right to address her concerns. After all, it would be sort of hypocritical of him to get angry at her for doing what he had asked her to: looking after the team. 

So Keith didn’t fight it. Quite frankly, he would have been too tired to fight, even if he’d wanted to. All he had said, gaze lowered to the cup of tea Lance had pressed into his hands when he sat down, was a quietly accepting, “I think that would be best.” 

No one had anything to say, after that.

For a week afterward, the agreement they had come to went silent between them all. The activity with the Galra was low; certainly too low to need to form Voltron. Keith attended training but it went unsaid that, if a situation _were_ to arise where Voltron was needed, he would be staying behind. 

This is why when the alarms begin to go off and Allura’s voice comes over the castle intercom, alerting them to a crop of enemy ships that somehow went undetected on their radar, Keith does not rush out of bed to get to Black. Though there’s an insistent rumble from her that starts up in his mind, Keith chalks it up to merely the prospect of a battle. He grabs his Marmora blade from beneath his pillow—just in case—and joins Coran on the bridge to monitor the fight. 

But barely a minute has passed on the bridge before he notices that one distinct lion is missing from the bunch that are flying out of their hangars, roars filling up the empty silence of space as they hurtle past the viewing windows. 

“Shiro, where are you?” It’s Allura who asks it, a faint note of impatience in her tone the only thing to betray her leftover agitation towards him. That’s the other thing that’s gone unspoken of, this week: the unresolved tension that’s cropped up around their two black paladins. No one knows what to say or how to react—understandable, because _Keith_ doesn’t know himself. He’s been steadfastly avoiding Shiro where at all possible since the day on the bridge: a task that’s been easier than he expected to manage, considering Shiro seems to be avoiding him, too. 

Shiro’s voice comes over the intercom as a concoction of bewilderment and exasperation: “Black’s refusing to lower her particle barrier.” 

“Black is—? Oh, for quiznack’s sake!” Allura’s aggravated keysmash across Blue’s controls can be heard to everyone as she shoots a volley of lasers into the rapidly gaining ships before she decisively snaps, “Keith, get to Black, _stat._ We do not have _time_ for this right now.” 

Perplexed, Keith exchanges a look with Coran, who shrugs bemusedly back at him. “I suppose she _is_ right, though perhaps a tad more angry than the situation calls for. Better get moving before she turns those lasers on you, my boy.” 

Keith has to make a detour back to his room to grab his armor; he’s pulling on his vambraces as he goes, listening to his friends’ strategizing and intermittent shouting in his helmet as he bursts into Black’s hangar. Shiro is still there, scratching his head as he looks up at Black’s unlit eyes with the most flummoxed expression on his face that Keith thinks he’s ever seen on him. When he hears Keith enter, he looks over at him. 

“I . . . don’t know what happened,” he confesses with a sigh. “It’s like, I can still feel her in my mind, but she just won’t open up.” 

Keith sighs himself as he steps further in, a hand already lifted to press to her barrier. “Oh, Black,” he says lowly, “What are you thinking?” 

Her barrier begins to dissolve the instant his hand makes contact; her voice is a defiant roar in his mind, calling to him: _you are still my paladin. It is time to fight._

Keith glances back at Shiro only once, to try to glean if he’d heard it too. He hadn’t, but his eyes are dark with understanding as he meets Keith’s gaze. He nods once, expression not once wavering on Keith as he tells him, “Good luck out there.” 

“Thanks,” Keith replies, eyes flicking again up to Black’s eyes, now bright yellow and glinting with anticipation. Over the comms, Allura shouts again: _“KEITH, your presence would be greatly appreciated right now!”_

Keith doesn’t look back once before he rushes into Black and races out to join the fight.

  
  


_____

  
  


_Keith’s time with the Camdens begins, as it eventually ends, in shades of red._

_Red: scattered throughout the orderly rows of flowerbeds in Mrs. Camden’s garden as poppies, tulips, pentas. Red: the color of her plastic smile and the walls of his room in their house. The lacquer of her nails shining beneath bright lights; the sheen of freshly spilled blood. Scarlet sage and a stained-glass window set up high—the latter, the only outward indication of the third floor that Keith will later come to know as hell._

_The glass glistens as bright as rubies in the sunlight. The first time Keith sees it, he thinks it is beautiful._

_“Come along, dear,” Mrs. Camden says to him on the day he comes to stay with them; when he stops to stare at that circle of color high above for a little too long, forgetting where he is. And there’s her plastic, lipsticked smile: the smile that adults hand out like formalities, the kind that expects and demands a smile in return. The voice of Keith’s social worker is in his head, reminding him to be polite, reminding him to be on his best behavior this time._ Do you know how lucky you are, that a couple as nice as this one has offered to take you on? Especially after all of your bad behavior, recently. 

_Keith does not smile back at Mrs. Camden. Mrs. Camden, stepping aside to let Keith into the house, is undeterred._

_“My husband is out, picking up groceries for dinner, and Isabella is finishing up some homework. Would you like a snack, Keith?”_

_Keith shakes his head. He’s gazing around what appears to be the sitting room, mistrustfully eyeing the glossy wood floors, the furniture that is plucked straight from one of those magazines that live on tables in doctors’ office waiting rooms. The whole place smells almost overwhelmingly of lavender. There’s a vase of roses on the coffee table—these are also, predictably, red._

_Mrs. Camden hums, “Well, alright then. I suppose I’ll show you to your room, so you can settle in.” She turns to lead him up a flight of half-turn stairs, and Keith keeps his gaze on the dark wood as they ascend. Mrs. Camden’s chatter flows as unceasingly as a turned-on tap: “It will be so nice to have another child in the house. Of course, Isabella is lovely, but she can be so . . . withdrawn. Which is understandable, of course; the poor dear’s mother is a drug addict, you know. But she can be so dreary. Oh, tell me, Keith—do you play sports? Of course you must—what boy doesn’t? Perhaps at your new school, we could sign you up for soccer. Would you like that?” They’ve reached the top of the stairs by now, and she looks down at him with an expectant look on her face. Keith is uncomfortable beneath it—he can’t help thinking that, just this once, he would like for someone to_ not _look at him—so he shrugs noncommittally in the hope that it will get her gaze off of him. But no luck—and now Mrs. Camden thinks he likes sports. Great._

_The hallway is lined with doors, all of them shut firmly and, if Keith had to guess, locked tightly as well. At least, that’s what he thinks as he follows her down the hallway until, as he’s passing by the third door, he notices that it’s cracked just enough for a single, coal-black eye to peer through. It startles him, but not enough for him to speak up about it. When he glances back again after passing by, the door is resolutely closed again._

_Mrs. Camden is still talking, completely unaware of what’s happening behind her as she takes out a key to unlock the very next door. “Here we are,” she announces, and pushes it open to step into the room. Dutifully, Keith follows._

_Inside, he finds a room that surprisingly surpasses his expectations. Not, of course, that the room looks anything like his bedroom back in his dad’s house, and it’s a lot darker than he particularly cares for (deep burgundy walls and dark wood furniture), but at least the bed isn’t shaped like a race car, and the whole room doesn’t smell like another foster brother’s dirty gym socks. In a rare turn of events, he doesn’t have to share. He supposes that’s kind of nice—as far as that word can stretch, now. He doesn’t really think of anything as being all that nice, anymore._

_“Alright,” Mrs. Camden says from the doorway, and briskly claps her hands together once. Keith barely resists the urge to jump. “I’ll leave you to unpack, then. Dinner should be done within the next couple of hours. Let me know if you need anything, alright, dear?”_

_Keith says nothing, but he nods so she knows she is understood, because adults hate it when you ignore them. She just gives him another of those scarlet smiles and closes the door behind her, leaving him alone to “settle in.” Not that there’s all that much to settle: his single backpack of belongings will remain intact until the Camdens inevitably send him away. Given the looks of this place, he doubts he’ll be here for much longer than two weeks. Three, if this family is feeling particularly charitable._

_He goes over to the window to stare out over the street below: expensive cars parked on the curb, someone walking their dog passing just below the Camdens’ house. All of the other houses in the neighborhood look identical to Keith; if you’ve seen one house, he thinks, you’ve seen them all. He probably won’t remember much of this place after he’s gone._

_There’s a soft, barely-audible knock on the bedroom door. This time, he does jump, and he rolls his eyes at himself as he goes to answer it. Schooling his expression back into a perfect picture of politeness, he starts, “Yes, Mrs. Camde—?” only to falter when he realizes that it is not, in fact, his new foster mother at the door._

_It’s the owner of the eye from the cracked-open door. The owner of two black eyes, he notes now, because this is a whole person standing in front of him. A girl. She’s a little older than him if he had to guess, and immediately, everything about her puts him on-edge._

_“You’re Isabella,” he says. It isn’t a question; Keith hasn’t spent three years of being almost entirely on his own wasting time by asking stupid questions. She, evidently, also doesn’t care to waste time answering not-questions, because she shushes him as soon as the words leave his mouth. Harshly, a finger raising as if on instinct to her lips while she glances behind her, as if checking to see if someone has materialized out of the air, “Shh. Don’t let her hear,” she whispers._

_This doesn’t help to lessen Keith’s uneasiness. “Why?” he says, but he’s already lowering his voice in response to her hushed one. He, too, flickers his gaze over her shoulder, just to make sure._

_But then she’s pushing into his room, and all of Keith’s instinctive wariness is replaced with a strong wave of discomfort. He doesn’t like it when people crowd into his space uninvited, even when that space is brand new and definitely temporary. And Isabella is only a few years older at most, but the fact is she_ is _older, and Keith is suddenly thinking about the last time he got close to someone who was older than him. That hadn’t gone very well, and he’s not interested in a repeat. “Hey, get out—” he starts to protest, but she cuts him off with another harsh hiss of air between her teeth. She turns to slowly shut the door behind her, trapping him in, and part of him is bursting with the urge to shout for Mrs. Camden. But the calculating, more logical part of his brain tells him:_ wait. 

_He’s not in danger yet. And he really, really doesn’t like the way she’s acting, but he’s curious enough to wonder why._

_“You need to listen, and you need to listen fast,” she says importantly, her black eyes flashing with a dark kind of intent. There’s a reason behind that darkness that Keith doesn’t understand; he suspects that he doesn’t want to. It’s the kind of darkness that no kid should ever have within them, for any reason. “What’s your name?”_

_“Keith,” he tells her, more on instinct than a willful decision. And the girl nods, repeats it to herself with grave seriousness, her jaw tensing the longer she looks at him. “Keith. Okay. Listen, Keith. I’m not going to mince words with you, and if you care about yourself at all, you’re going to listen. You need to get the hell out of this house. You need to run, as far away and as fast as you can—and never,_ ever _come back here.”_

  
  


_____

  
  


Allura doesn’t truly become a person until she has a mug of coffee in her hand and the facts laid out before her. Come the morning after the unexpected ambush, her attitude has done a complete one-eighty. 

“So here is what we know,” she’s saying at breakfast, leading the discussion that they all knew was coming. That doesn’t stop any of them from feeling uncomfortable in the face of it—eyes shifting without subtlety from one black paladin to the other and back again. Keith takes a long sip of his own coffee to distract himself from their stares as the princess goes on. “Keith is still Black’s preferred paladin, when she is given the option. Meaning that she will only allow Shiro to pilot her whenever Keith is not readily available. Meaning that _because_ Keith is still with us, he is the only black paladin we truly have.” A line creases her forehead as she frowns into her coffee, pondering. “This is concerning to me.” 

Keith can’t help the way he freezes at that: this feeling of deep-rooted shame waking up in his bones, stilling his hand where his mug is still half-lifted from the table. Some of the liquid sloshes over the rim at the abrupt pause, sending splatters of it raining down onto his fingertips. He opens his mouth to start, “I’m sorry—” but Allura looks up at him before he can get the words out, eyes softening on whatever she finds. 

“Don’t misunderstand me, Keith. It is nothing against _you._ I just fear that . . . well, quite frankly, I fear for your well-being. I fear that Black is making a terrible error in judgment. And I know that my father always said that the lions are wise beyond our abilities to comprehend, but—” The princess falters for a moment, the frown line deepening, multiplying itself into the crease that knits between her brows. “It is clear to me that you are not well right now, Keith. And I do not believe that fighting is going to help make you better, in this case. I do not know what Black is thinking at _all.”_

Keith doesn’t tell Allura that, tangible battles or not, he never truly gets a break from fighting. He doesn’t tell her that his mind is a never-ending battlefield: bloodshed and screams lost on the wind, nearly losing himself every time his enemy soldiers raise their weapons. And he doesn’t tell her that, though some small part of him still hopes for peace, he never expects to receive it. He’s going to be fighting until the day it inevitably kills him—but when he opens his mouth, that’s not the promise that leaves him. What he says to her, resigned but determined to prove himself, is: “I’ll do what I have to do.” 

“I know you will,” Allura replies, and though she is already on her second cup of coffee, she sounds bone-weary. “That is what I’m afraid of.” 

“I have to say that I agree with Allura.” The temperature seems to drop ten degrees as everyone turns to look at their other black paladin, who doesn’t even flinch under the sudden attention. And this sharp, unvoiced irritation sinks hooks under Keith’s ribs as he’s reminded of how much he _hates_ this sudden shift in their team’s dynamic. He hates the way the others have been looking at his brother lately, like he’s the villain in this story and Keith is just his innocent victim. He would have a problem with it even if _did_ contain a single bit of accuracy, but the thing is, it _doesn’t._

Regardless of how Shiro said the things he did, Keith knows that he wasn’t entirely _wrong._ And the thing is, Keith thinks that if the others knew all of the things that Shiro knows, it’s more likely than not that they would agree with him. 

But it’s exactly for that reason that Keith doesn’t say a word when Shiro tries to explain himself. Carefully, he continues, “I know that you probably don’t want to hear this from me right now—” and is abruptly, but not unexpectedly, cut off by Allura. Keith can’t bring himself to look at either of them as she scathingly bites out, “Which is precisely why he will _not_ hear _this_ from you right now. I think that you’ve been quite helpful enough when it comes to giving Keith advice lately, Shiro.” 

The entire table falls into an uncomfortable, thick silence. It feels so tangible around them that Keith thinks he could take his Marmora blade and slice right through it, tearing an even more obvious rift between them all than the one that’s already staring them right in the face. Guilt curls up unpleasantly in the pit of his stomach as he stares at his barely-touched plate in front of him, thinking: _I should say something. I should defend him._ But he doesn’t, and the guilt turns into a revulsion toward the food that he is meant to eat, and the revulsion turns into him suddenly feeling desperate to get out of the room. He doesn’t just want to _sit_ here, he can’t; he’s about to move, when someone else beats him to it. 

Pidge stands, her chair dragging back with a dissonant _scrritch!_ as she pushes away from the table. Eyes darting to everyone, but lingering for the longest on Keith, she mumbles, “I’ve got more important things to be doing right now than muddling through this shitty drama.” 

She leaves, and Keith sits there for a long moment wondering how much of that was directed at him, specifically. And then deciding, _probably most of it._ He allows himself only a moment to feel stung by it, before accepting that he probably deserves it. And then he gets up, his own chair sliding silently back, and goes after her. 

He finds her in Green’s hangar, resting against her massive paws and tinkering with some piece of tech, a troubled frown unhappily twisting her mouth. She doesn’t even have to look up to know it’s him. “Go away, Keith.” 

“You’re mad at me,” he notes. The guilt from earlier is coiling up, coming around again—as it does. “I’m sorry,” he says, but by now even he knows how useless it sounds, falling from his lips. 

And it is useless, here, against the anger that displays itself on Pidge’s face as she looks up to fix him with a heated glare. “Sorry for what you did, or just sorry that I’m mad at you?” she snaps at him, a white flare flashing in her eyes when she tells him, “You’re the biggest hypocrite in the universe, Keith.” 

“I . . .” Keith falters, his hands dropping to his sides in confusion. “I don’t understand.” 

“Of course you don’t.” Pidge rolls her eyes, sets her project aside to cross her arms over her chest. “Maybe this’ll put things in perspective. Last time _I_ tried to leave, back when we first started the Voltron thing, you yelled at me about the importance of Voltron and teamwork until I cried. You spend _three years_ telling everyone that we all matter, that we need each other, that we’re a _family.”_ The word is almost a curse in her mouth, spat into the air between them like something spoiled. “But when _you_ want to throw all of that away, you just expect us to, what? _Let_ you go? It’s like you expect the worst of us, Keith, even though you _know_ how important you are to us. And that _really fucking hurts,_ and I am so _pissed_ at you right now. I’d like to throw something at you, except I can’t even do _that,_ because you look like you’re two seconds away from bursting into tears and I’d feel terrible. So just— _fuck you,_ Keith. Saying you’re sorry isn’t going to fix it this time.” 

“I’m—” Keith has to press his lips together to fight the instinct, hands curling into distressed fists at his sides. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, standing like this, so he takes a risk and goes to sit near Pidge on the floor. Not close enough that he’s within hitting distance—he doesn’t want to take the chance that she’ll change her mind and decide to enact violence on him, even if he deserves it—but close enough to feel like they’re having a real conversation. 

“All of those . . .” Keith begins hesitantly, then falters. He can feel Pidge’s eyes on the side of his face like the lasers she’d programmed Green to shoot out from between her toes, and it makes trying to find the right words even more difficult than it already would be. He gazes down at his hands in his lap, twisting a loose thread in his black jeans, and tries again. “Everything I tell you guys—about being a family, and our team being important—those _are_ things that I believe. Or . . . things that I _want_ to believe. But sometimes—a lot of times,” he corrects himself, and pauses to let the words finish ringing out in the silence. And then he exhales slowly and confesses, “I know it probably doesn’t make any sense. But the truth is that I—sometimes I forget that I’m a part of that. Because, like, you said that I—what? That I know I’m important? I don’t. I _don’t_ know that, and that’s not supposed to be a thing to make you pity me. It’s just the truth. I got used to not mattering a long time ago, Pidge, because I . . . I _didn’t_ really matter to anyone. And so now, sometimes, it’s really hard for me to believe any of you guys would really be affected if I just . . . wasn’t here anymore.” 

Keith can feel his face twisting minutely with his emotions. He tugs at the thread in his jeans until it finally comes loose; it hangs there between his fingertips, limp and purposeless.

“And you know, Pidge,” he says, and his voice is now a barely-breathed whisper, “I _really_ thought that I was doing the right thing, leaving. And part of me still—I just, I _thought_ you would all be fine with it. I mean, maybe not at first, but then you’d . . . you’d get over it. I didn’t want to hurt any of you. I _never_ want to hurt any of you. But I didn’t—I didn’t think that I _could._ I didn’t think I meant that much.”

When he finishes speaking, the cavern fades back into silence. Pidge is a paragon of quiet at his side; he can’t even hear the light sound of her breathing. Keith glances at her out of the corner of his eye and finds her glaring off into the distance, as if the walls have done something to personally offend her. Her fists are clenched so tightly on her folded knees that her knuckles have bleached to the color of bone. 

“That’s stupid,” she eventually bites out. “Of course we’d be _affected._ You don’t spend three years fighting evil purple furries together in space without forming significant attachments to the people around you. _You_ aren’t an exception.” 

“I know that now. Or—I’m trying to,” Keith whispers. And then, because he can’t _help_ it, “Sorry.” 

Pidge makes a quiet noise of affront, but she doesn’t comment on it. She finally turns to look at him, and though she’s still very visibly livid, she at least no longer looks like she wants to throw something at him. And there, flickering in her amber eyes: the slightest fleck of a grudgingly emerging, rebellious curiosity. “How did Lance get you to stay?” she asks. 

This, at least, is a question with an easy answer. “He asked me what I wanted. He . . . gave me a choice.” 

“Oh.” Pidge hesitates. “Well then . . . why were you going to listen to Shiro? If you didn’t want to leave, I mean.” 

This one isn’t so easy to simplify. Keith shifts to curl his knees into his chest, folds his arms on top of them as if that will help contain all of the fresh regret that begins to well up like a cut slicing open the skin of his palm. Carefully, he tries to explain. 

“Shiro . . . he’s gotten me through a lot of shit. He’s—we haven’t always known each other, you know, but since he met me, he’s _always_ been there. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say he’s the only reason why I’m not dead right now.” Keith keeps his eyes glued firmly to his shoes; he definitely doesn’t want to see what Pidge picks up from _that._ “Point is, Shiro knows me better than anyone. He knows why I’ve been so—why I haven’t been at my best lately. And he’s _worried._ Which is understandable. It’s not his fault that when he asked me to think about the team, my first instinct was to run away.” 

Pidge mulls it over, and appears to be somewhat appeased, but still not anywhere near impressed. “He still shouldn’t have said those things about you being the black paladin. If he knows you so well, he _had_ to know how you would react to that.” 

Keith sighs. He tries to ignore the echo of Black’s voice in his mind saying: _he feels distant and—different, somehow._ “Maybe,” he acquiesces, “but Shiro’s life doesn’t revolve around me, Pidge. He has his own stuff to deal with; he can’t just sit around predicting what I’m going to think or feel every time he says something.” 

“Well maybe he should try,” Pidge mutters. She’s mirroring his position now, hands curled around her knees. She rests her head back against Green’s paw and looks up into the cavernous ceiling, so vast that they can’t even see where it ends before it’s swallowed up by shadows. “Anyway. I’m really glad you’re still here. But I haven’t forgiven you yet.” 

“I understand.” Keith almost smiles at her almost-convincingly flippant tone, but then he notices that the troubled darkness to her face has only eased up marginally. Frowning, he ventures, “Was there . . . anything else you wanted to talk about?” 

Pidge opens her mouth to speak, then closes it. She stares upwards for a little while longer, and then she opens her mouth again on a slow sigh. “I found a lead on Matt. A potentially, really _good_ lead. I was going to say something about it before but . . . then all of this stuff with you happened. And I figure, the others probably aren’t going to be very happy with the idea of me leaving right now to look for him. But the thing is, I—I’ve been _waiting_ for something like this. And now it’s right in front of me. How can I _not_ take it?” 

Keith’s heart pangs at the dejected look on her face. Softly, he says, “You have to take it.” 

At that, Pidge turns her head to face him again. Subtle astonishment colors her eyes, lifts the arches of her eyebrows as she dubiously says, _“You_ think I should go?” 

Keith shrugs. When he smiles at her, it’s genuine but rueful. “I think I’m the last person in the position to tell you that you shouldn’t.” 

“What about Voltron? What about . . . family, and sticking together and stuff?” 

“If we can survive the tension of this past week alone, we can survive anything,” Keith tells her. Hesitantly, but with a fair amount of confidence that she’s not going to bite, he settles a hand onto her shoulder. She doesn’t shrug him off. “If your instincts are telling you that this is what you’ve been looking for, then you should trust them. If you want to go, then go. We’ll still be here when you get back. I promise.” 

And Pidge just looks at him for a long, impassive moment. Keith begins to worry that he’s said something wrong, and he’s about to open his mouth to ask or apologize (or both), right before Pidge bodily launches herself at him. 

“Woah,” he says, a quiet laugh startling out of him as he has to bring a hand down to keep himself from toppling over. She has her arms wrapped around his neck, chin hooked almost painfully over his shoulder, and it’s probably the most awkward hug he’s ever been a part of but at least, he thinks, this is better than throwing things and yelling. Or crying. Keith has had far too much crying, lately. 

“I hate you so much sometimes,” Pidge grumbles into his shoulder, and digs her chin further into the bone there just enough to let Keith know that it’s definitely intentional. “I’m supposed to be mad at you right now. _I am mad at you right now._ This is an angry hug. This is what happens when you cross me. So you better not do it again. Or else.” 

Keith knows a threat when he hears one; he also knows how to tell a real threat from a fake. So his lips are tugging up at the corners as he brings his arms around to reciprocate the hug; resting his own chin on top of her head, he’s grateful that she can’t see the amused smile there, or she _really_ might kick his ass. “Whatever you say, Pidge,” he tells her. They can both hear the fondness that saturates the words but, wisely, they both decide to not say a single thing about it. 

  
  


_____

  
  
  


_It’s been months after that first day when Keith’s entire life dips into red, again._

_It’s been_ months. _All of this time, thinking he was safe, thinking that maybe this would be the time something good in his life lasted—thinking his foster sister must be insane. Keith, curled up in the corner of his bed nearest the wall, stares blankly at the ceiling and doesn’t know whether he should be angry with himself, or just sad. He thinks he might feel a little bit like both, if he wasn’t so numb._

_Really, the only thing he can even think about is how_ stupid _he’s become. He wishes, with the kind of fierceness that usually brings tears to his eyes but this time only makes his chest ache so much that he can’t breathe, that his dad was here. He just wants his dad; he wants to go home, he wants to be away from this stupid house and all of these_ stupid people, _he wants someone to_ hold him. _But he’s all alone._

_This is the first time the thought occurs to Keith that he’s probably, definitely going to die alone. He doesn’t know what it means that, even as scary as that thought is, he still can’t find any tears._

_When he hears the slight, barely-there creak of the door opening, he doesn’t look over to see who it is. He already knows. “You were right,” he says dully. “I should have listened to you.”_

_“Keith . . .” There’s no pain in her voice, or any sort of sympathy—and isn’t this Keith’s day for realizations, because at once, he understands the reason why she never shows any of her emotions. She’s probably gone numb, too. He wonders:_ how many times have they done that to you? _But he doesn’t ask, because he doesn’t want to know. But, “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and Keith knows that she does mean it._

_“S’not your fault. You tried,” he mutters. He finally musters up the strength to look at her; her face is a careful blank canvas, and looking at her hurts almost as much as the pain in his chest. He thinks:_ this whole time, this is what she was trying to tell me. She was trying so hard to protect me—

_After a hesitant moment, Isabella comes over to perch at the very end of the bed. Keith doesn’t know whether to be grateful or not: on the one hand, he’s so desperate for someone to touch him in a way that isn’t awful; on the other, he isn’t sure he would be able to stand even the slightest touch right now. She keeps glancing at the door in that way she’s always done, like she’s worried something is going to burst in—and for the first time, Keith_ gets _it._

_“It’s never . . . it’s never been like that,” he whispers. His spine is beginning to hurt from being curled up so tightly, but he thinks it would probably hurt even more to try to move. “I mean, before, it was just—but this is—it’s different. It’s . . . worse.”_

_He didn’t think that was possible, before. He didn’t imagine it could get any worse, but as always, the world seemed more than happy to prove him wrong._

_“I know,” Isabella whispers. She has her knees curled up to her chest, a gesture Keith has seen her make a lot; it’s like she’s trying to hold herself, like she’s trying to keep from falling apart. Keith wonders when the last time someone held her was. His heart pangs again when he thinks, it’s probably been even longer than for him. She’s been alone for a lot longer than him. “We don’t have to talk about it,” she says, and even though there’s a part of Keith that thinks he_ does _want to—who else can he tell about this? Who else is here?—he understands that she doesn’t. And maybe, Keith thinks, he doesn’t really want to, either. He doesn’t know what he would say if he tried. And it’s not like she doesn’t already know._

_The only thing Keith has any strength left for is sleep, and so eventually, he falls into it. And behind his eyes flashes a series of red: nails as sharp as knives; blood tracing pathways down his skin; the stained-glass high above. That close, Keith had learned that the shape formed in the colored glass was a bird, wings outstretched as if in midflight._

_As Keith dreams, the bird shifts in the window, as if about to truly take off. It glitters and glistens, beautiful and free, and Keith can’t stop himself from asking, hurried and desperate: “Can you teach me how to fly?”_

_It tilts its head, one beady black eye becoming visible to stare right into Keith. And for a moment, Keith holds his breath and allows himself to hope. Maybe, he thinks, this is really all just some imagined nightmare. Maybe when he opens his eyes again, he’ll be somewhere else entirely. Maybe, if he holds on for just long enough, he’ll be able to hear his father’s voice calling him home._

_But then that moment ends; the bird breaks its stare and turns away from Keith, as if it had never even seen him. It flies away, picking up speed as it goes, and Keith watches with a heavy heart as it carries that last grain of hope away from him on the backs of its unbroken wings._

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith only has to knock twice before Lance opens the door. 

He’s bleary-eyed, rubbing the sleep from them with the palms of his hands; bed-head going in a hundred different directions; pajamas rumpled just enough to show a slight jut of collarbone. _He’s perfect,_ is the first thought to break through his static haze, and it brings with it a twinge to his heart that, surprisingly, isn’t even a little bit unpleasant. It’s distracting enough that he doesn’t immediately respond when Lance raspily says, “Keith?” 

And then he says his name again, with more urgency, and Keith feels as if he’s been splashed in the face with ice water. Blinking, Keith draws his gaze away from that tiny glimpse of tan skin, remembering with an unpleasant taste in his mouth why he’s here. 

“Remember that time you said you wanted me to wake you up when I’m going to the training deck?” 

It barely takes a second for understanding to flash across Lance’s face. With a glance down to his lion slippers, he says, “Give me just one minute?” 

“Yeah.” Keith turns to lean against the wall as Lance’s door slides shut again, curling his arms tightly across his ribcage as if that’ll help him hold it together. Every time he closes his eyes, all he can see is blood red, so he has a staring contest with the wall until the only thing in his vision is a blur of blueish-white blankness. His eyes have begun to glaze over by the time the door opens again and Lance emerges, now clad in training-appropriate clothes; his name is once again a question in his mouth when he asks, “Keith?” 

“Yeah,” Keith repeats, not a real answer to Lance’s non-verbalized inquiry, and pushes off the wall to start walking. “Let’s go.” 

Lance says nothing on the walk up to the training deck, and Keith is grateful. He doesn’t think he has it in him to pretend to be invested in a conversation; knowing Lance, he’s probably already figured that out for himself. It’s only when he’s gone in before Keith to flick on all the lights that he calls over his shoulder: “So do you want this to be a player-versus-player kind of deal, or am I just here to supervise?” 

Keith doesn’t answer as he disappears into the adjoining weapons room; he reappears a moment later, having found what he was looking for, and wordlessly tosses one of the wooden staffs into Lance’s waiting hands. 

“Fast reflexes,” he comments, and though his voice falls flat, Lance still takes it in stride. 

“Yeah, baby. They don’t call me Sharpshooter for nothing,” he brags loftily as he follows Keith to the center of the floor. Keith scoffs halfheartedly before turning on his heel to face him; they stand there, looking at each other without moving for a long moment. Keith clenches his hands as tightly as he can around the Altean weapon and then allows them to loosen just to the right amount of tension for combat, all while Lance looks at him with a patient sort of curiosity. “So, are we gonna—?” he finally begins, right when the silence is beginning to stretch into lengthy territory. And this is when Keith strikes. 

He wasn’t kidding around in any sense when he commented on Lance’s reflexes before. It’s one of the things that makes Lance the best partner to have during a battle: his fluid ability to adapt to any situation, to react with instinctive confidence whenever his brain tells him to _move_. But what makes Lance the best teammate to have on your side has the natural consequence of making him the worst enemy to go up against. 

His counterstrike is immediate: a sharp _crack_ ringing out from the point of contact, a vibration resounding through it to the bones of Keith’s forearms. With the feeling comes a fresh buzz—the unreplicable sensation of new _energy—_ and suddenly Keith is wide awake in a way that he wasn’t before. 

Hypervigilance can only do so much for a person. _This_ is something else entirely. This is the mischievous flash of Lance’s blue eyes dancing out of his reach as he spins out from under an attack; the slide and pound of their boots across the floor, circling each other until they aren’t sure who is chasing and who is being chased; the adrenaline that floods their nervous systems not from fear, but _excitement._

They’re two sets of too-fast heartbeats and too-loud breaths and two voices ringing out in laughter as Lance feints and Keith falls for it; as they reverse, over again. And it’s when they’ve settled into a pattern of it that Lance decides it’s the perfect time for a conversation. “You wanna talk about it?” he ventures, barely even sounding out of breath. Keith responds by trying a dirty, admittedly childish tactic: he sticks his foot out to try and trip him. Lance snorts as he evades him. “I’m guessing that’s a no.” 

“That is a no,” Keith confirms. Humming, Lance responds by going for Keith’s ankles with his staff, and he’s narrowly able to jump over it. They’re quickly getting away from the traditional style of fighting—Allura would likely be ashamed of or offended by them if she could see them defacing one of her culture’s most prided forms of combat—devolving into something stupidly playful and immature.

“Okay, well. You know what _I_ want to talk about? That douchebag diplomat from earlier that refused to acknowledge me unless I addressed him by all twelve of his names before I started every sentence. _Twelve._ Who needs that many names, Keith? _Nobody.”_

Keith lets out a noncommittal huff that may or may not be a laugh before he accuses, “You’re just trying to distract me.” 

“What, me? Distract you? Never.” Lance bats his eyelashes at him, somehow without losing the movement of his staff. He brings it up to block Keith easily, then does an admittedly impressive back aerial to get out of his range. When he comes up, the collar of his loose training shirt has snagged on his shoulder, once again exposing the same slice of collarbone from earlier. Keith’s eyes are caught on it for long enough that he nearly misses Lance’s next strike. (He would accuse _that_ of being Lance’s real diversion, except then he’d have to admit that he is, in fact, distracting—and most likely without even being aware of it—and Lance would _never_ let him live it down.)

“Anyway, so Pidge sweeps in to my rescue because she wanted to show me this weird piece of Lur’en tech, and I’m like, ‘ _peace out, whatever-your-name-is.’_ But then. _But then!_ This dude challenges me to a _duel_ because I messed up the pronunciation of one of the names . . . or maybe all of them—not the point _._ The point is: a _duel,_ Keith. Like we’re in The quiznacking Princess Bride or something _.”_

“Lance, I know,” Keith replies, as unamusedly as he can when he’s finally beginning to feel the strain of their fight. “I was standing ten feet away from you when all of this happened.” 

Lance scoffs. _“Yeah,_ but you were chatting up the chancellor on like, weapon lore. _By the way,_ it totally looked like she was five seconds away from asking for your hand in marriage when you pulled out your fancy glowing Marmora blade. So not only was I about to face off this guy in a duel, I was _also_ mentally preparing myself to fight the ruler of an entire _planet_ for you. And then for Allura’s ensuing lecture. _You’re welcome.”_

And Keith pauses for a split-second at that; a second where he asks himself: _is he—?_ before he’s being spun around, trapped with the Altean weapon barred across his chest, Lance’s own chest pressed flush to his back. Suddenly Keith feels warm for a reason that has nothing to do at all with the exertion of the fight; he’s embarrassingly breathless when he asks, “Is that jealousy I detect, McClain?” 

“What? No, absolutely not,” Lance haughtily dismisses. “You’re just trying to deflect from the fact that _I win—”_

This is when Keith turns his head to the side and finds his cheek only centimeters away from that sliver of bare skin at Lance’s shoulder. And he isn’t sure if it’s a rare moment of bravery or all-encompassing stupidity that sweeps over him, but it only takes an instant for it to hijack his body: he twists in Lance’s tight grip just enough that he can press his lips to that jutted skin in a featherlight but _very deliberate_ kiss. Lance goes speechless and boneless at once, his arms loosening around Keith until they might as well be a paper barrier. And though it wasn’t his _intention_ to gain the upper hand—Keith smirks as he kicks back with one of his feet to hook around Lance’s ankles, sending him falling onto the padded floor with a thump and a muffled curse. He spins to follow him down, knees landing to either side of Lance’s hips with his staff now pressed firmly across his shoulders. Keith’s own staff is abandoned, cast thoughtlessly to the mat beside them. 

“I think this means that _I_ win,” he corrects, an amused little smile toying at the corner of his mouth as he stares down at him. Lance stares, flushed and wide-eyed, back up at him. 

He opens his mouth and shuts it, repeats this process a handful of times before he’s finally able to sputter: “I—that was _dirty,_ Kogane. Super unfair. You _know_ I’m in love with you.” The way he says it, it sounds like an accusation. But it still makes Keith’s heart beat unsteadily to hear it said so casually. So _easily._ Like he says it all the time, like it’s just one of his _things._ Like now that he’s said it once, he plans to keep on saying it whenever and wherever possible. 

“Yeah. I do know that,” he agrees, and tilts his head to the side without breaking eye contact. His heart is a hummingbird’s flight in his throat as he lifts the staff to toss it somewhere beyond them before returning his hands to Lance’s shoulders. “It’s not an unfair tactic if it’s reciprocated, Lance.” 

“It is—so . . . !” Lance’s retort dies half-finished as again he gapes at him. And then he squints, says almost indignantly, “Wait. _Wait._ Back the truck up a minute. Is _that_ your way of telling me you love me back?” 

Keith runs the loose fabric of Lance’s shirt between his thumb and index finger, playing with it as he wonders aloud, “You mean you didn’t figure it out already?” 

“I _didn’t figure it o—? No,_ I did not figure it out, Keith. I know you aren’t a words person, but _come on,_ babe. Sometimes they’re _necessary.”_ Lance is doing an impressive job of sounding calm, even while he looks like he’s trying very hard not to have a stroke. Meanwhile, that hummingbird’s flight in Keith’s throat has turned into an entire charm of them, and they’ve all migrated into his stomach to turn his stomach into a fluttering mess, their wings flapping along to the tempo of the word _babe_ coming out of Lance’s mouth, over and over. 

“Oh.” Keith forces himself to swallow down the rise of nerves, and for what seems to be the first time all night, puts effort into thinking rationally. _You started this conversation,_ he reminds himself. _Too late to back out now._

But he’s wondering now if maybe he should have thought about the consequences of his actions a little more before he went through with them. The solidness of Lance’s shoulders beneath his hands is a conscious reminder of where they are—on one of the training deck mats, collected weight denting it below them, breathing in air, breathing it out—but Keith suddenly feels like he’s dropped into a depthless pool of water. He’s in over his head; this is far deeper than he planned on going tonight—than he was planning on going, _ever,_ but—

But. 

_When’s the last time I told someone I loved them?_ he wonders, and tries to recall, and can’t _remember._ He thinks that it must have been Shiro—but even then, that was probably before he left Earth for the _Kerberos_ mission. That was . . . that was entire lifetimes ago. 

He doesn’t know if that’s a sad thing or not. Maybe not—after all, just because he hasn’t _said_ it doesn’t mean he hasn’t felt it. He feels it all the time: for Shiro and Pidge, for Allura and Hunk and Coran. For Lance. He loves them more than he thinks he’d even be able to explain if he tried; he thinks, at least for the most part, that they already know anyway. And Keith is glad for that, because if they know without him having to say it, then he’s done _something_ right, at least. Because in his experience, it’s not the words that matter all that much, anyway. Not when a person’s actions will tell you much more clearly how they feel about you. 

But then there’s Lance. _Here_ is Lance, right beneath his hands: someone who’s so expressive in his feelings that once, a long time ago, Keith envied him for it. For the ability to show his love not just in one way or the other, but in _both._ Lance is the kind of person who can make the words matter, because he builds them on something that’s really _there._ When Lance says _I love you,_ Keith thinks that he could genuinely believe it, because behind those words are all of the times that he’s been there for Keith, all of the nights that he’s spent putting up with his bullshit when he didn’t _have_ to, all of the gentle touches and the patience and the _care_ that he’s displayed—like Keith is something worth caring about, to him. 

Keith doesn’t think that Lance would be here right now, on the training deck in the middle of the night when they should both be sleeping, allowing Keith to use him as a way of letting out pent-up feelings that he can’t even _explain_ to him, if he didn’t really love him. There’s no other explanation for that kind of devotion to someone, is there? Not when there’s no reward involved, not when Lance isn’t getting _anything_ from this, when he’s never even _asked_ for anything from him. 

He used to wonder if he’d be able to recognize true love, if by some odd chance he stumbled across it someday. Now, he thinks: _if it’s not Lance, then what the hell is it?_

And it’s such a strange thing to him, an absurd kind of _miracle_ that someone with that kind of love would choose to give it to _him,_ of everyone else in the universe. But that’s exactly what Lance has done. And Keith . . . he wants to do the same. He wants to be able to give the same, or at least to _try;_ he knows that his perceptions on love are probably all wrong, but he would like to try and fix them, because he wants to give Lance as much as he’s getting. He wants to give him _more._ And how can he do that, if he can’t say it? How can he, if he can’t even meet Lance halfway? 

Logically, it’s an almost effortless choice to make. _Just say the words. Just say them—you both know that you mean them, so what are you waiting for?_ But still, Keith’s tongue feels like it’s been glued down by some force outside of himself, and when he tries to open his mouth, it’s clamped shut by a warning: _remember what happened last time?_

The thing is, he’s been _wrong_ before. No matter how right he _thinks_ things are this time, there’s still a chance that he’s gotten something wrong, here. That he’s misinterpreted something, or overlooked something or—or _something._ Wanting to be loved isn’t exactly a new thing for Keith, but he’s been fed salt disguised as sugar enough times to _know_ that he should be more careful, and the warning bells are ringing their agreement in his ears, telling him: _just because it feels real doesn’t mean it is; just because he says he loves you doesn’t mean he means it; just because he might mean it now doesn’t mean it will last. Don’t you remember? Don’t you_ remember? 

“Keith?” Lance tugs on the hem of his shirt to get his attention, tugs until Keith gives up his preoccupation to focus instead on the kaleidoscopic, coruscating blue of his eyes trained earnestly on him. There’s a strange kind of understanding in them that Keith doesn’t remember seeing before he zoned out, and it’s as soft as the hand Lance reaches up to cover one of Keith’s own on his shoulder, squeezing gently as he tells him, “Hey, I get it. I know that it’s . . . it’s a big thing, to actually say it. And if you can’t say it now, that’s okay. I mean, we’re on the same page now, I _know_ now, so . . . so it’s okay. Take your time. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.” The smile that curves up his lips by the time he finishes speaking is so sweetly _honest_ that it makes Keith want to cry. And he wants to ask him: _how are you_ real? And he really, _really_ wants to kiss him—wants to find out if Lance is as sweet as he looks and feels and _must_ be, wants to find out what it feels like to kiss someone that he loves, wants to find out what _choice_ tastes like. 

It occurs to him now that _this_ is a choice. If he chooses right, it could be the first of many. He allows himself to seriously consider, for a moment, what it would be like to tell Lance that he loves him whenever he wants to. To be able to kiss him, and _want_ to. And he thinks that _that’s_ what he wants, that if he had the choice, that’s what he would choose—and he _does_ have the choice. 

Maybe, a part of him acknowledges, he is choosing wrong again. Maybe this whole thing is a mistake, and if he knew what was good for him he would push away from Lance, apologize for this whole thing, and run away, like he always inevitably ends up doing. But, he thinks as he maneuvers his hand between Lance’s until they’re palm-to-palm, as he watches himself lace their fingers together in a way that _looks_ right, and _feels_ right—he can’t think of a single reason why he would ever regret this. 

Maybe he really is just stubbornly, blindly reckless when it comes to anything that presents itself to him as love; and maybe, because there is, inexplicably, still a childish part of him that’s immortalized in hope, he’s always going to believe that the thing being held out to him is sugar instead of salt. 

But maybe, _maybe_ this time, that’s okay. Because maybe this time, it actually _is._

So he dares to hope, and he ignores all of the warning bells, and somehow when he whispers the words, they go silent in his mind. “I do love you,” he says, gripping tighter to the fingers wound between his own. He worries for a moment that the pressure is uncomfortable for Lance, but Lance doesn’t seem to mind; he’s still smiling up at him, soft and understanding and now, _yes,_ Keith thinks, if love looks like a person, then that person is Lance. His heart is stuttering and stumbling over the floor of tree roots and snarling vines in his ribcage, and it aches in the way that scraped knees twinge when they fall to meet the dirt once again, but he’s made it this far. He’s made it this far, and he could still possibly turn away from this and make it out alive, but he doesn’t _want_ to. 

What he _does_ want, though. He wants to say it again. And so he does. 

“I love you. I _love you,_ I,” Keith shakes his head to try and clear the sheer _disbelief_ from his voice—not with his words, but that he’s _saying_ them. And he thinks he can feel the corners of his mouth lifting in a smaller imitation of Lance’s, and as he looks at him Lance’s smile seems to, _impossibly,_ grow even bigger. “I love you, Lance, and I . . . I’m sorry that I didn’t say it before, I know that I probably should have, but—” 

Before he can devolve into more rambled apologies, though, Lance cuts him off. Shaking his head as well as he can when it’s still resting on the padded floor, he reaches up with his free hand to tuck away the bangs that have fallen into Keith’s face. “Hey—no apologies tonight,” he says, making it a command without any sort of bite. He’s still smiling at him, stealing the breath from his lungs, and Keith is tempted to press his fingertips to it just to prove to himself that it’s real. _He’s so beautiful._ “You don’t ever have to apologize for saying that you love me. Okay?” 

“Okay. Sorry.” He clamps his mouth shut before any more instinctive apologies can pour through, and below him, he can feel the way Lance’s ribs shudder as he laughs lightly. His laughter is prettier than any music Keith’s ever heard, and the otherwise serious tone of their conversation is lightened by the lilting notes of it. When finally they trickle back onto silence, it doesn’t last very long before Lance breaks it again. 

“Hey, Keith?”

He’s glowing, Keith thinks, as if he’s absorbing moonlight. His whole face is lit up with this sort of starstruck beauty, like he’s bottled up all of the most celestial light in the universe and is reflecting that back onto him. And Keith is so awed by him that it takes a moment to register that he’s supposed to say something, and even then, the only words he’s able to grasp onto are: “Um . . . yeah?” 

Lance presses his lips together for a moment, like he’s trying to hold back more laughter. Keith’s eyes track the movement, so caught on the way his lips move when he speaks that he nearly misses the words’ meaning entirely. “Can I kiss you?” 

_Oh._ Admittedly, it does still take him a minute to process. And when he does, all of the air in his lungs trips on nothing, stutters between his teeth in a barely-there puff while his immediate response rises to rest in the back of his throat: _yes,_ please, _I can’t think of anything I want more._ But that’s a little more desperate than he’d like to sound, so he swallows it down and tries to come off as somewhat calmer when he says instead, “I mean. I guess so.” But he doesn’t quite pull it off—knows it, because he sounds breathless even to his own ears, and Lance’s smile takes on this amused edge as he lifts himself off the ground just enough to prop his upper body on his elbows. Keith is expecting him to lean in and kiss him right then and there, but he doesn’t. Instead he just looks at him, head tilting to the side in a way that’s almost annoyingly endearing, and points out, “That’s not an actual yes, sunshine.” 

Keith, in spite of his urge to just say _yes, okay?_ and close the gap himself, is momentarily distracted. He flickers his gaze from Lance’s mouth back to his eyes, curiously asks, “What’s with the pet names all of a sudden?”

Lance’s shoulders dip forward in the best approximation of a shrug he can manage in his position. “Do you not like them?” he asks. The glint in his eyes suggests he already knows the answer, though. It’s almost enough to persuade Keith to lie out of spite—but he can’t quite bring himself to do it. 

“I didn’t say that.” 

The tug at the corners of his already-smiling lips reveals a flash of white teeth as Lance laughs again, openly and brightly. Keith feels the warmth of it like a warm beverage seeping through porcelain to his fingers, like the sun on his face early in the morning. He hears the same warmth mirrored in Lance’s voice when he decisively says, “Well, I like them. So unless there are any objections, they’re staying.” 

“No objections here.” Well, Keith _does_ have one objection. His impatience is twining with anticipation as he taps Lance’s shoulders with his fingertips and demands, “Are you going to kiss me or not?” 

Lance doesn’t make him ask twice. 

Admittedly, the very first thing Keith notices is probably the most inconsequential. Lance tastes like a strange combination of slightly-off cucumber and vanilla (alien lip balm from the space mall, he knows, because Lance had raved about it for days after he discovered it), but Keith finds that he likes it far more than he would have thought. And underneath it, something that’s just distinctly _Lance—_ better than the combination of clean-and-sweet, it’s just _him:_ new and different, indescribable in the way that it is unlike anything Keith’s ever tasted before, but he already knows it is something undeniably _good._

The second thing he learns is something that, in retrospect, isn’t surprising at all. Lance kisses in the same way that he fights: with laser-pointed focus, with confidence and intent poured into every minute slide of his fingers on Keith’s cheek, every slight change in degrees as he tilts his head. But alongside it are all of the lighter elements of Lance’s personality: the undaunted enthusiasm that infuses his every movement, the jittery thrum of his pulse that Keith can feel beneath his fingertips where they come to rest below his jaw. The slow upward curving of his lips, even as they press against Keith’s own, growing gradually beneath their notice until—

“Wait, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Lance pulls away suddenly, sliding a hand down to Keith’s shoulder to prevent him from following as the other hand raises to cover his own mouth for a moment. “I’m smiling too much,” he explains, voice muffled, “Give me a second.” 

Keith snorts, but doesn’t move away from the hand on his shoulder as he patiently waits for Lance to recover himself. “You’re such a dork,” he notes, even as he can feel a smile of his own slowly tugging at his own lips. “And what happened to no apologies?” 

“Well see, the difference is _my_ apology is necessary,” Lance begins with a certain air of pompousness. He lowers his hand from his mouth, finally, but only so that he can splay it across his chest in a way that Keith thinks is meant to display immense self-importance. He only manages to make himself look ridiculously overdramatic, but then, Keith can’t be entirely sure that that’s not what he was actually going for. “It is truly a _tragedy_ to deprive you of my impeccable kissing skills, Keith. In fact, I would understand if you were devastated right now. Are you devastated, Keith?” 

“Oh, yes,” Keith replies, keeping his voice a perfect monotone, “So devastated.” 

Lance nods solemnly, as if this is the only answer he expected. He tilts his head, eyes widening imploringly as he gravely asks, “Do you think you could ever find it within yourself to forgive me?” 

“Hmm . . .” Keith pretends to think about it for a long moment. Admittedly, he’s wondering what the hell they’re doing—but it _feels_ like harmless fun, and it’s too easy to give in and play along. Smirking, he says, “I can think of one way that you can make it up to me,” and watches as this time Lance’s eyes widen for real with genuine surprise, and then a soft delight. 

It appears to be the only motivator he needs in order to get a grip on what his mouth is doing—or at least, that’s what they’re both thinking, as Lance leans in to kiss him again. Head tilting, lips barely brushing—

A twitch of one specific party’s mouth, a pause where neither of them breathes, and then: “ _Wait,_ I’m _sorry—”_

_“Lance.”_ But Keith finds that he can’t really feign annoyance with laughter this close to falling from his tongue; with Lance this close, still here beneath his hands, solid and real and so absolutely _ridiculous._

Lance is ridiculous, and he’s maybe even a little bit insane, Keith is thinking to himself as he watches him begin to laugh—at first slowly, and then all at once descending into the realm of hysterics. His own throat is piling up with barely restrained laughter, and he’s only able to hold it back long enough to think: _this boy is ridiculous. He’s absolutely ridiculous, and I am so in love with him._

And then he’s laughing so hard that his shoulders shake from the force of it, and he’s collapsing to the mat beside Lance because he physically can’t hold himself up anymore, and they just lay facing each other as their laughter rings out on the otherwise silent training deck. Keith is certain that if anyone were to walk in right now, they would think that the two of them have completely lost their minds. He opens his mouth, intending to voice this thought to Lance; meets the other’s bright, mirth-filled gaze, and loses it once again. 

Keith doesn’t know how long it goes on for. It could be minutes or hours, but all he knows for sure is that for what feels like a handful of private eternities, any time one of them begins to quiet down, all it takes to start them up again is to take one look at the other. And they go on like this until their ribs are sore splinters and their faces ache too much to physically be able to hold their insane-looking smiles in place any longer, and even then they can still see amusement in the glitter of each other’s eyes. The strange thing is, by the end of it Keith can’t even remember what was so funny in the first place. But he doesn’t think he’s laughed this hard in—well, in all of his life, if he’s being honest. In the silence that falls, after, Keith finds himself looking at Lance and wondering: _how can this one person remind me in a single moment that there must still be good in the universe, when my mind constantly does all it can to convince me that there isn’t?_

He doesn’t know the answer; he’s not sure that he ever will, or that there even is one. 

But what he does know is this: 

Later, they stand in the hall between their rooms and pause to say goodnight. The castleship will still be in the midst of its night cycle for a few more hours; enough that there’s no valid reason to not try and go back to sleep, when they both know they have training in the morning. They’re both worn-out enough from their time on the deck that Keith thinks there’s an actually decent chance that they might just get a couple good hours of rest—a nearly foreign concept to him, but a pleasant one, and he’s about to sleepily bid Lance goodnight when Lance stops him with a hand on his shoulder. 

“Wait,” he murmurs, “I can do it right this time.” Keith wants to tell him: _you’re already doing everything right,_ but even through his exhaustion-addled brain he’s able to understand that that would mean another moment where Lance isn’t kissing him, and—well, it would be melodramatic to call it a _tragedy,_ but it _is_ the less favorable of the two options. So instead, all he says is, “Okay.” 

This time, Lance kisses him even more softly than the first, one hand curling against his jaw as he pulls him in close, and he drags it out into the longest and most unhurried kiss of Keith’s life. There’s no demand to it, no push and pull: it’s as if to Lance, they have all the time in the world. It almost feels as if they’ve already been doing this for years. _Years._ The thought of that kind of time with Lance sends something swooping in his stomach, and he lets himself think about how if he could have his way, that’s the future he would choose every time. 

But that feels like a thought that is much, much too deep for tonight, and so he files it away as Lance pulls back; Keith notes that he makes sure not to smile until he’s definitely out of kissing range. But then he does smile again, this soft and sleepy, beautiful thing. Keith’s heart beats a slow, calm lullaby in his chest as he says, “Goodnight, Lance.” 

“Goodnight, Keith,” Lance whispers back. He presses the button to open his door, turns to disappear through it, and glances back over his shoulder one last time for the night; Keith is certain that the gentle curve of this particular smile will be ingrained into his memory for the rest of his life. 

It’s not until he’s within his own room, back pressed to the closed door to give himself a steady surface to support him as he replays the night’s events, that he realizes that his lips are still tingling—the taste of something unmistakably, undeniably sweet lingering on his tongue. 

  
  
  
  



	6. the flames are cold and patient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thinks about losing all of the people that he loves; he thinks of watching them disappear right in front of him in the same way that Shiro slowly is. Fear, he thinks, must be the most powerful motivator, because by the time Lance comes knocking on the door to let him know: “Keith? We’re on in five,” he has convinced himself that what’s about to happen out there will be nowhere near as bad as the would-be future where he screws everything up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for:  
> -discussion of suicide  
> -an assault dream  
> -vomiting

“Keith?” 

Allura’s footsteps ring out like the tolling of bells as she walks onto the bridge; the uncertain lilt to her voice is the echo a half-step behind them. She’s been looking for him for a while, Keith guesses. He doesn’t look away from the red giant, just visible on the horizon outside of the viewing windows. “Hey, ‘Lura. You need something?” 

“To talk to you, if that’s alright.” 

The echo of her footsteps ceases when she reaches his side. He’s sitting in the black paladin’s seat with his knees hooked over one of the armrests, and when he turns to look at her, he has to crane his neck back a little. She’s looking down at him with two steaming mugs in her hands, and wordlessly offers one to him. When he accepts it, there’s a silent understanding that passes between them. Agreement. 

He knows that Allura deserves at least this much from him. He hasn’t exactly given her anything else lately. 

“What are you doing out here, by yourself? Do you not also wish to say goodbye to Matt?” 

Keith purses his lips, letting the steam of the coffee float up to him for a moment before he sits up, careful not to let it slosh over the sides. “I spoke to him briefly, earlier. He should spend the time he has left with Pidge and Shiro, though. I think they’re going to take it hard when he leaves.” 

“I see,” Allura says, with no particular inflection. “So you are not as close with him as Shiro is?” 

“Nah. Back on Earth, he was Shiro’s best friend. That’s pretty much all I ever knew him as.” 

“I see,” Allura repeats. With more curiosity in her voice, she asks him, “Did you have a best friend? On Earth, I mean.” 

Keith flickers his gaze forward again. The distant, orange-hued star seems to be pulsing with its light. It’s so bright that it’s dazzling, even from so far away—even with the knowledge that it is taking its final breaths, now. It still has a few billion years if it’s lucky, but out here in space, a few billion years seem like nothing. The star is dying, and all of the planets around it are dead. 

“You know,” he says, “I used to imagine that everything about space was . . . so beautiful. I dreamed of coming to the stars, and I thought: _everything there must be perfect._ But—but this? I didn’t even think about places like this. Here, it feels like we’re passing through a ghost town.” 

Keith can almost feel the princess’s hesitation warring with her curiosity. Predictably, curiosity wins. “There are towns filled with spirits on your home planet?” 

Keith, in spite of the unspoken gravity pulling at the corners of their conversation, finds himself smiling. “Not literally. Sometimes on Earth, places are abandoned by the people who lived there. They leave everything behind—their work and homes and personal belongings. There are no literal ghosts, but they’re still pretty eerie to pass through. And just . . . sad. It makes you wonder what was there before, you know? What life must have been like, and what caused everyone to abandon it.” 

“That does sound sad,” Allura quietly agrees. “I don’t believe we had anything like that on Altea, but—I think I understand now. You also wonder about what life could have grown here, back when its star was still in its prime.” 

“Yes.” Something in the word sticks in his throat, a confession underlying that he doesn’t want to address. He keeps his eyes fixed in the distance, keeps his mind focused when he says, “We have no idea what was here before, or if there ever was anything at all. If anyone existed, we’re never going to know. All of that potential life extinguished, and for what? Because the universe dictated that it shouldn’t exist anymore? Isn’t that the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?” 

“Perhaps you should not think in this way,” the princess cautions. She moves to face him, perching on the end of the control desk that sits in front of all the paladin chairs. Her eyes, when they meet his directly, are fathomless pools of worry, and it sends a tiny prickle of self-hatred through him when he thinks of how _he_ is the one who put that there. “Life is a cycle throughout all of the universe: it begins, and it ends. And that is not always fair, but—if we spent all of our time grieving over it, I fear we would never be able to get anything else done. And there _is_ still life out there. Life worth protecting.” 

“I know that,” Keith whispers. And then he catches himself, and when he says it again, his voice has returned to normal. “I know. But it’s still just . . . a tragedy. Shouldn’t someone mourn them? What if no one mourned them?” 

“Whether someone did or not, it is not your responsibility, Keith. You are only one person. It does not fall on you to mourn entire civilizations.” 

“I know that,” Keith repeats. But inside, there’s a voice that’s whispering faintly: _do you?_

The heavy cast of Allura’s eyes doesn’t lift. “There is something that’s been troubling me, lately. Something that you said, that night when you came to my room.” 

_Aside from everything else you said_ is what goes unsaid between them. Keith is suddenly grateful for the coffee, as he takes a tired sip and waits for the energy to kick in. He has a feeling that he’s going to need it. 

“You told me that we would be better off without you. Do you remember that?” 

_How could I forget?_ “Yes.” 

Allura bites her lip. The handle of her coffee mug is clutched in a death grip, but she takes a deep breath and steels herself. “It sounded like you were planning on never seeing us again,” she says, and though her voice is calm, it’s betrayed in the nearly imperceptible way her hand trembles. “Later, the more I thought about it, I . . . I couldn’t shake the comparison that—you sounded like a suicide note, Keith.” 

Something in Keith’s chest tightens: a bow being pulled taut, a rubber band pulled nearly to its breaking point. But he keeps his hands steady around his own cup, and he says nothing. 

“When you walked off that bridge, Keith. What were you planning.” 

The way she says it, it doesn’t sound like a question. It sounds a lot like she’s already made up her own mind on what Keith was planning, and he has a sneaking suspicion that she won’t believe him, no matter what he says. But he has to try. “I wasn’t going to _kill_ myself, Allura, if that’s what you’re asking.” And he’s telling the truth—at least, he thinks it’s the truth. He hadn’t really _had_ a plan. 

_You didn’t have a plan last time, either,_ that voice in his head whispers. He takes another swig of coffee and staunchly ignores it. 

“But suppose you had gone on the mission.” Allura’s grip hasn’t lightened, and neither has the look in her eyes. “Suppose you were shot down in the middle of battle, out in some far-away quadrant where none of us could reach you in time. That idea did not appeal to you?” 

Keith averts his eyes. “That’s a different question.” 

“It is not,” Allura tells him. Her hand has gone still, finally, and the only detectable emotion in her voice is this deep, heavy sadness. “Either way, it ends with you no longer being here. And _that,_ Keith? That is the saddest thing that _I_ have ever heard.” 

“I don’t understand what the big deal is,” Keith says. And the thing is, as a quiet frustration begins to bubble up in his veins, he really _doesn’t._ “We’re soldiers, anyway. I could die at any moment, in _any_ way. So why would it matter so much? Would it really make much of a difference?” 

“Yes,” Allura replies instantly, “it _would._ We may be soldiers, but we fight with a _purpose._ And if we die, then we die _with_ that purpose. When we fight, it is not a conscious choice to take ourselves out before our enemies can.” 

“You think it’s a _choice?”_ This time, Keith fails to keep his voice from cracking; the bitterness that wells up in the crevices is inexorable. “I _chose_ to stay, Allura. Isn’t that enough?” 

“I would like for it to be. Believe me, I _wish_ I could believe that it is enough.” Allura finally sets down the mug, but Keith isn’t sure if it’s empty or not. He doesn’t even remember seeing her take a single sip of it, which is so unlike her that it would be worrying in itself, without the context of their conversation. Her mouth is turned down into a frown so severe that Keith can’t help but call to mind a Lance response: _if she stays like that, she’s going to develop premature wrinkles._

But he doubts the princess cares very much about that, in this moment. Her eyes are wide and beseeching, suddenly, as she leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees. And she looks young like this, almost childlike with her hair coming out of its careful bun in loose, waving tendrils. It makes Keith’s heart hurt to see. 

“You must understand. I know that I cannot understand what you are going through or feeling. But—but I beg you to _try_ to see where I’m coming from.” She reaches to take Keith’s own cup from his hands, sets it down beside hers and replaces it with her hands. This time, unlike the night in front of her room, Keith doesn’t pull away. And Allura continues to speak. “You—the six of you, _all_ of you—you are the _only family I have left._ Even if you were not, you would all still be so precious to me, but it is especially because of that that the idea of losing you is—it is _crippling.”_ Each of her words is punctuated with a heavy weight; Keith can _feel_ how much she means them, like individual jabs into his heart. “I cannot _bear_ the thought of losing you—to the war or for any other reason. _No_ reason would be a good enough one to make up for the emptiness that would split apart the universe if you were gone. I love you—we all do, _so much—_ and I understand that sometimes love isn’t enough, I _do,_ but I ask you to at least try to imagine what I see when I look at you.” 

He wants to ask her why she’s bringing all of this up now. It’s behind them, or so he’d thought—things have been kind of normal again, lately. He doesn’t want to mess all of that up, and he wants to _tell her—_ yes, he knows he messed up. And yes, he knows it’s unforgivable. But he’s not going to let it happen again, and he’s going to make it up to them, _somehow._

He doesn’t need an intervention. He’s already chosen not to go anywhere. 

But he opens his mouth and doesn’t say any of this to Allura. Regrettably, it decides without his mind’s agreement to be honest. “I don’t think . . . I don’t know if I can do that.” 

“Just try,” Allura asks; he’s not quite sure what look must be painted on his face, but she looks at him and her gaze softens to this almost unbearable gentleness. She isn’t usually one for wearing her heart on her sleeve, but right now Keith can read everything in her face: love alongside heartbreak, desperation warring with hope, all tied into a sadness that bleeds endlessly on behalf of another. The sincere fear of a sister terrified of what might happen if she does not get to say her piece to the brother she loves. 

Keith can’t find any words to say when she’s looking at him like this; he knows that she understands this in the way she squeezes his hands where they still rest between her own. And then, between one breath and the next, she’s brushing his bangs out of his face to lean forward and press a kiss to his forehead. They both freeze in the moment: Allura’s lips lingering as she allows all of her feelings to pour into him, Keith closing his eyes and fighting the sudden, clotting thickness in his throat. His grip on her hand tightens like she’s a lifeline, and maybe she is—he doesn’t know, anymore. He thinks, suddenly, that he doesn’t know _anything._

“For the record,” she whispers when she pulls away, holding his hand just as tightly as she meets his eyes. All of the prior sadness is gone—it’s replaced with fire, bright and determined, and _this_ Keith recognizes. This is Allura when she goes into battle: fierce and indomitable. “If anything happened to you, I would ensure that every living being across our universe mourned you until the stars themselves collapsed from grief.” 

And then she releases his hand with a final squeeze, and Keith lets it fall back into his lap silently. No more words pass between them as she collects their abandoned coffee cups, rises to her feet, and leaves him to think her words over. Her footsteps echo again as she goes, and this time, they sound like the loyal pulse of an undying heart. Keith closes his eyes and imagines that the sound is within him, much stronger and steadier than his own heart: strong enough, steady enough to keep both of them alive.

  
  


_____

  
  


He was browsing a Krelusian market when he saw the first thing resembling an Earthen notebook since coming to space: bound in some strange stitch pattern, the paper too rough and thick between his fingertips, and shaped like a sideways trapezoid. The cover was an almost blinding shade of gold. Keith had bought it and the accompanying pen on a nostalgic whim, only realizing how ridiculous that was when he was back in his room and questioning who thought it was a good idea to give him spending money. He’d tossed it into a box in the bottom of his closet and forgotten about it. 

Now, he takes it back out, conflicting emotions pattering in his chest, and stares at it. He tells himself that it’s not his recent conversation with Allura that’s dredged up the memory, but he feels the weight of it in his hands as he recalls: _I ask you to at least try to imagine what I see when I look at you,_ and knows he’s lying to himself. 

Paper in space is surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on your perspective) hard to come by. Most of the planets Voltron has visited have been lightyears ahead of Earth when it comes to technology, meaning that the practice of using paper to keep records or anything of that nature is pretty much obsolete. Keith spends a long moment just running it beneath his fingertips and then adjusting to the feeling of having an actual pen in his grip. It’s almost foreign, the way it feels to drag pen over paper, watch ink spill out from his hand in a test scribble. And then he halts, squints at the page, and sighs. _Of course there’s glitter in the ink._

_This is stupid,_ he thinks. He’d had a therapist once who suggested he write out all of the things in his life that made him happy—some sort of _count your blessings_ bullshit—and the thought of taking any of her advice now sort of makes him want to vomit. But he already wants to vomit anyway, from the mesh of uncertainty and guilt in his stomach wrought by the undying question: _what if I chose wrong again?_ And Keith is a lot of things, but ignorant isn’t one of them—he knows that he’s almost reached the end of his rope. He has to do _something_ to get this back under control, and he just thought—maybe if he has all of the reasons why he chose right staring him in the face, then maybe that feeling will go away. 

_Maybe, maybe._ Keith debates with himself for a long moment, exhales slowly through his mouth, and resolves himself. He writes, in no particular order: 

_Lance._

_Pidge._

_Hunk._

_Coran._

_Allura._

_Shiro._

There’s another long moment of hesitation as he roots through his mind. And then he adds a seventh. 

_Black still wants me to be her paladin._

He pauses again. Unconsciously, he starts tapping the pen against the paper. He stares, and he stares, and he stares. And then—

_I don’t want to die._

The pen stills in his hand, and he bites his lip to distract from the lump in his throat. He ignores the visible shake in the letters, in his hands. In the lines when he crosses the words out until they become nothing more than a block of indecipherable, glitter-coated scribbles. 

  
  


_____

  
  


“Keith,” Lance sighs from the doorway, leaning against the frame and watching with an expression torn between fond amusement and genuine frustration. “It’s our day off. Don’t you know the meaning of the word _‘relax?’”_

Keith, mid-battle with a hoard of training bots, has no time to answer. He ducks beneath an onslaught of rapid gunfire, ignoring the ache in his hand that tends to act as his body’s first warning that he’s been at this for too long, and goes for their ankles. Two go down; four more immediately take their place.

“Alright, nope, that’s it. _End simulation,”_ Lance calls out, clapping his hands together. The bots instantly drop back into the floor, and Keith straightens, a look of affront crossing his face. “Hey!” 

“Hey,” Lance replies easily—only a note away from cheerful. He strolls over and plucks Keith’s blade out of his hands. His fingers twinge unpleasantly. _“Cariño,_ come on. It’s our _day off—_ no alliance meetings, no bad guys to fight, no _team training.”_ He pokes Keith in the stomach twice to accentuate _team training._ “Come hang out with me. We can do facemasks and watch Altean _telenovelas_ all afternoon. If you still have the pressing desire to punch things after dinner, we’ll come back. Deal?” 

And then Lance smiles at him. He bats his eyelashes, and Keith wants to look away because he feels like he’s being tricked somehow—but he _doesn’t_ look away, and two minutes later he’s sitting on Lance’s bathroom counter, kicking his feet against the cabinet while Lance rifles through his many, many shelves of products for . . . a glass jar of something almost offendingly pink, and a paintbrush. 

“Okay, so I’m going to have to catch you up on the whole show before we start the episode I’m on . . . because it’s kind of a lot,” he’s saying as he unscrews the lid on the jar. “So it starts when this magician named Opal learns she has a secret twin brother that her parents hid from her for her entire life because this witch put a curse on them. . . .”

“Wait—is this that show with the evil diplomat guy? The one you’re always complaining about at dinner?” 

Lance halts mid-ramble, paintbrush dipped into the jar as he blinks at Keith. “Uh—yeah, Evil Diplomat Chad. I didn’t know—I didn’t know you listened to my rants.” 

Keith gives him a weird look. “Of course I listen. Why wouldn’t I?” 

Lance flits his gaze back down as he shrugs; Keith thinks he’s trying for noncommittal, but it doesn’t quite work. “I dunno . . . I mean, Pidge or Allura or someone is always telling me no one cares, I guess,” he mutters. Keith feels a rare burst of vexation for his teammates, but he doesn’t let it show on his face as he sits up more and says, “Well, _I_ care. That show makes you happy . . . I think. I mean, actually most of the time you just seem annoyed when you talk about it. _Does_ it make you happy?” 

Lance hums, contemplating as he reaches to tilt Keith’s head in a certain way and tells him to stay there. “It’s complicated. I’m in a love-hate relationship with Uv’eet, and I _hate_ Evil Diplomat Chad—hence why I renamed him Evil Diplomat Chad. Hold your head _still,_ Keith, or I’m going to get the pink goo up your nose.” 

Keith wrinkles said nose the instant something cold and foamy meets his skin. “You actually like this?” 

Lance hums again. “Love it. And even if you don’t realize it, _you_ love it too, because it’s how I achieve my constant perfect glow. You wouldn’t want a boyfriend with non-glowy skin, would you, Keith?” 

_Boyfriend._ It’s the first time he’s actually said the word, and Keith’s heart kind of glitches a little bit as he tries to decide whether it’s okay or not. “I’d think you’re beautiful anyway,” he says honestly, and the way Lance’s face goes a shade of pink that has nothing to do with the goo on his paintbrush answers the question for him. _Yes, this is more than okay. This is the most okay I’ve been in a long time._

“Oh—oh. . . .” Lance says, trying to recover himself, and looks down, suddenly intensely focused on scooping out the right amount of facial cream stuff. He clears his throat. “Anyway, uh—yeah, I used to do this kind of stuff with my mom and Rachel and Nadia and Sylvi. And this face mask is definitely the most _neon_ pink I’ve ever seen, but it’s my favorite because of the texture.” 

“The texture?” The only thing Keith’s noticed aside from the color so far is that it’s incredibly cold. But Lance smiles, this lightning flash of soft nostalgic, and says, “Yeah. It feels _exactly_ like sea foam. Like, when it washes up on the beach and you squish it between your toes? That is hands-down the best feeling in the universe.” 

Keith hums. He’s sort of acclimated to the goo’s temperate now, and now that he’s past it he has to admit that it really isn’t that bad. “Guess I wouldn’t know.”

“You will someday,” Lance tells him confidently, with this soft little smile that makes Keith’s breath catch in his throat. He’s so taken in by it that, even when Lance tugs him off the counter and turns him around so that he can see what he looks like with his face coated in pink goo, the reflection of that smile is still the only thing Keith can focus on. 

He kind of, _really_ wants to kiss it. But he knows that Lance would definitely complain if he ruined the masterpiece he spent so long on, and it would almost definitely get in one of their mouths, so he resigns himself to wait. 

They pass the next fifteen to twenty minutes side-by-side on Lance’s bed, watching the opening scenes of the hour-long episode. Ru’land finds out that his boyfriend’s father was the assassin that murdered _his_ father ten deca-phoebs prior (something that Lance has been speculating for the past few episodes confirmed), and Opal’s looking for this magical sheep-looking animal for some kind of potion. The timer goes off right as she trips and falls into a hole that leads her to a dark and mysterious cave, and Lance sighs good-naturedly as he pauses the episode. “Oh, Opal . . . always falling into stuff.” He shakes his head as he slides off the bed and extends a hand to Keith, wiggling his fingers. “C’mon, time to reveal your freshly-radiant skin, _guapo.”_

In the bathroom, Lance hands him a damp washcloth and sternly tells him, “Circular, _gentle_ motions, Keith. Your face is delicate and should be handled like the gorgeous treasure that it is.” Keith snorts, rolls his eyes, but does as instructed. Lance rambles about the show as he starts rubbing at his own face—“Man, can you _believe_ that about Llorlak’s dad? I mean I know I suspected but I didn’t expect to be _right._ I have a really bad feeling that this is going to negatively impact their relationship”—and Keith is content to just watch Lance ramble in the mirror. He doesn’t realize that he has a dumb, infatuated smile toying at the corners of his mouth until Lance stops mid-sentence to squint at him. “What?” he demands suspiciously, “You have a strange look on your face.” 

Doing his best to wipe off his smile, Keith glibly says, “I think I got pink foam up my nose.” Lance scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Nope, don’t believe it. Try again.” 

They’re both finally sporting pinkless faces, though, so instead of immediately answering, Keith steps into Lance’s space and gently tugs off the dorky headband he was using to keep his hair pulled back. He wraps it around his own hand, rests both of his at the base of Lance’s neck, and confesses: “Fine. I just . . . really love you.” 

Lance turns pink again, so endearing that Keith can feel himself starting to smile stupidly again, and he says, “You’re going to have to _stop_ saying things like that before I melt into a puddle and _die—_ or I have to kiss you or—” 

“Kiss me,” Keith says, and he doesn’t _mean_ for it to come out like a challenge, but it does. And the way Lance’s eyes take on an almost-competitive gleam makes something in his stomach swoop a little in the half-second before he closes them and does just that. 

Lance’s skin is soft and cool against his, smelling pleasantly of some kind of alien floral extract, and yeah, okay, _maybe_ the masks do kind of make a difference. He grudgingly admits this and Lance smirks victoriously as he pulls away. “Didn’t I tell you? Anyway, as _romantic_ as making out with you in my bathroom is, I have a perfectly good bed like, ten feet away—” 

Keith is already nudging him towards his room as he’s speaking, walking him backwards out of the bathroom. The lighting in Lance’s room is dimmed _(“perfect television-viewing lighting, Keith”),_ but Keith’s heart feels as bright as the grin on Lance’s face as the backs of his knees hit his bed: there’s this sort of ridiculous sappiness radiating from him, and he still can’t believe that _this_ is how Lance looks at _him._ He doesn’t really get the _why_ of it, either, but then Lance leans in to kiss him again and he forgets to wonder. 

Another one for the list: _I wouldn’t have this._ They’re sort of tumbling onto the bed and Lance is laughing even as he asks, “You good?” and Keith’s heart is beating _so_ fast, but it’s because the way Lance is looking at him is the way no one’s ever looked at him before, like he _means it_ when he asks, and even though it’s not meant to be a serious question, Keith treats it like one when he replies, “I’m perfect.” 

One of his hands is on Lance’s shoulder, and the other’s tangled in the hair at the back of his neck; both of Lance’s rest somewhere along his spine, and Keith can’t think of much beyond the taste of alien cucumber-vanilla chapstick, but what brain space he has left is devoted to memorizing how _soft_ everything about this is. 

_This_ is the first thing of its kind that they’ve ventured into; the kind of kissing that involves a tangle of elbows and limbs and chests pressed close enough that Keith can feel the thrumming of Lance’s rapidly beating heart against his own ribcage. Things that shouldn’t be soft—the curve of his nose when it accidentally bumps his own; his fingernails skimming Keith’s scalp when he twists his fingers into his hair—inexplicably _are._ Keith is unexpectedly comfortable, and he _likes_ this, likes this closeness and warmth and the sharp edge of Lance’s jaw beneath his fingertips. There’s a part of him that distantly thinks he should be afraid of how _not_ afraid he is, but he is determinedly not going to go there right now. He _refuses_ to be afraid of Lance. 

Not, of course, that he could imagine _ever_ being afraid of Lance. He’s so _warm_ along every place that he touches, so much so that Keith’s head is nearly spinning from it, and his hands are so gentle where they rest along his waist now that he can’t imagine—

“I love you,” he whispers, abrupt, against Lance’s mouth, because he doesn’t _want_ to imagine. And the way Lance immediately smiles against his mouth is all the tether he needs, melting against him when he sighs out: “Same—you have _no idea_ how long I’ve wanted to say it, Keith.” 

“How long?” He’s genuinely curious, reeling at the thought that _this,_ while new, might not really be as new as he thought. He hasn’t had much time to wonder _when_ Lance fell in love with him, because he’s still so caught up on the _how._ His stomach is twisting, not from any sort of sick nervousness, but from _anticipation_ when Lance slides his hand up his spine to rest at the base of his neck, when he pulls him in to kiss him, drawn-out and dizzying. Breaking away, his breath is hot against Keith’s mouth when he says, “You remember that swamp planet with the—the giant mutated bullfrogs?” 

It only takes a moment of combing through his memory for it to click into place. “Oh, _no,”_ he says, biting his lip so that he won’t laugh. Lance pulls away just enough that his face comes into focus, and he’s grinning right back at him. 

“The Empress said she wouldn’t join the coalition unless our brave and fearsome leader proved himself worthy by fighting the _sacred warrior of the frog gods.”_

“And I almost got all of my skin burned off by giant frog venom,” Keith says, wrinkling his nose up at the memory. When Lance laughs, he can feel it rattle right into his chest. 

“Yeah,” Lance agrees. “But here’s the thing. So you were laying on the ground, covered from head-to-toe in frog spit and mud, and your hair was frizzing from the humidity—possibly corroding in some places from the venom—and I realized that even like _that,_ I still thought you were definitely the hottest person I’d ever seen in my life. And that’s when I knew.” 

“Huh.” Keith tries to think back on the moment Lance is talking about, but all he can really remember from that planet is an unpleasant tingling sensation, and smelling like swamp mud for two full movements after they left. “That was . . . so long ago,” he says wonderingly. “This—this whole time?” 

“This whole time,” Lance confirms. His smile is a little smaller now, but no less dim when he confesses, “I . . . was planning on telling you, at some point. When it was right.” 

Keith’s own smile dies down a little, at that. “Guess I kind of ruined that, huh?” 

“No,” Lance says, voice firm as he reaches up to rest his hand on the side of Keith’s jaw, his eyes never leaving Keith’s own when he tells him, “Absolutely not. Look, I know it wasn’t the most romantic thing in the world—but I’m starting to think that we weren’t destined to be the most conventional couple in the universe, anyway. And that’s fine, because what matters is that we made it here eventually, right?” 

“Right,” Keith repeats, even though his throat suddenly feels thick with something that he doesn’t want to try to identify. It isn’t the first time that he’s wanted to ask: _how are you even real?_ but he’s afraid to, suddenly; afraid that he’ll ask, and everything will fall apart. And he _can’t_ let that happen, so he bites back the question once more, and when Lance leans in to kiss him again, he lets himself get lost. 

He kisses Lance like he’s been wandering in the desert for years and years—like, finally, _here_ is his oasis, _here_ is the place he’s been longing for all this time, here is _home,_ and _safety,_ and all of those things he never dreamed he’d be able to feel right beneath his fingertips. And he _is_ real, and he’s _here,_ and it’s almost unbelievable because—

_Real love is never going to exist for people like us, Keith._

As the thought floats into his head, Keith inhales too sharply; ribs snagging on air as he forces himself to breathe out again, peering one eye open to see if Lance has noticed the glitch. But he hasn’t—he’s as into it as Keith was only seconds ago—and so he forcibly pulls every conscious thought into this moment, right here, and kicks that thought back into the corner of his mind that it crawled from. Hooking his arms around Lance’s neck, tugging him down with him and putting everything he has behind the gamble that the warm weight of Lance’s body on top of his will be enough to keep him in the moment—and for a moment, it does. 

But then something changes—the tempo of their breathing, maybe, or the realization of Lance’s fingers toying with the hem of his shirt—and Keith feels himself getting a little _too_ lost. _Wait,_ some small voice from deep inside of him whispers, but he nudges it away as he tilts his head, as Lance’s mouth leaves his to start a trail down to his jaw, as he closes his eyes and reminds himself: _this is fine, I want this, this is safe, this is warm, this is_ good. 

And then Lance’s fingertips are skirting along Keith’s bare skin, just below his shirt, and his throat tightens in the same moment as his grip on the back of Lance’s shirt. And he knows, he _knows,_ these are definitely Lance’s fingers: familiar callouses on his fingertips from years spent wielding guns; and this is Lance’s mouth on his neck, Keith _knows_ this, because he can smell his juniberry-scented shampoo where his hair tickles his jawline, but—

_But._

It’s when Lance’s palms flatten against the sides of his ribcage that Keith forgets how to breathe. 

He can’t quite disguise his choked gasp this time: the way he shudders and then goes stock-still beneath his hands, his throat _burning_ and his chest too tight, as everything becomes suddenly _too_ warm. And he can feel the exact moment Lance freezes on top of him, can feel him pulling away. Can’t bring himself to meet Lance’s blue, suddenly-concerned gaze where he’s looking down at him, asking, “Keith? What’s wrong?” 

_Please take your hands off of me._ “Nothing,” Keith says, but his voice is too strained, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Nothing—sorry, I . . . got distracted.” 

“Oh.” Lance doesn’t sound fully convinced, and Keith should probably be more concerned about that, but he’s still almost painfully aware of the ten points of searing contact on his skin, on keeping his breathing steady beneath it so that Lance won’t notice. And then, all at once, the pressure is gone; Lance is pulling away to sit back on his knees, and air floods at once back into his lungs. 

Lance is looking at him with this carefully-crafted look on his face: concern without the anxious spiral, curiosity-laced calm. “Did I do something?” 

“No,” Keith says automatically. Flattening his hands on the bed to push himself up, he shakes his head. “No, that’s not it. You’re perfect, I swear.” 

“Okay . . .” Lance reaches out to take one of his hands, squeezes it gently in his own. “So, what, then?” 

“It’s really nothing,” Keith repeats, forces his mouth into a relaxed smile even though he can feel his heart drilling a tattoo into his ribs. He watches himself lace their fingers together, lets it ground him as he flickers his gaze back up and latches onto the first change in subject he thinks of. “We should finish the episode. Find out if Opal finds that sheep.” 

Lance still looks like he doesn’t really buy the reassurances, and for a moment Keith is afraid he’s going to push it, or worse—

_No,_ he thinks, almost violently. And Lance nods, then, hesitance still present in the lines of his shoulders, but he lets it go. He reaches behind them to adjust his pillows and presses play before he lays down, patting the space beside him. After a moment of intense internal debate, Keith lays down next to him. 

He misses most of the episode’s plot after that. His heart takes what feels like a handful of forevers to calm down, and the rest of the tension in his body takes even longer to leech out. Eventually he’s okay enough to let himself curl into Lance the way he wants to, but he still closes his eyes and reminds himself to breathe and wonders: _what am I doing? What have I done?_

He can’t shake the phantom feeling of being _small_ from his limbs, and there’s this certain realization that clicks in his head at once: snapping like the strong limbs of trees, like the delicate bones of a wrist, but with the terrifying _loudness_ of thunder, deafening when it crashes into him. 

_I’m going to ruin everything._

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith is used to being uncomfortable. 

That’s not to say that he’s _comfortable_ with being uncomfortable. He isn’t—that’s probably impossible, anyway. But sometimes he steps back and thinks that, in a way, his entire life leading up to Voltron was good practice for some of the elements that come with being a paladin of Voltron. 

Because as much as he loves Voltron—being part of something bigger than himself, being part of a _team,_ having people he cares about and feeling like he’s actually _doing_ something to make the universe a little less shitty when he fights—there are a lot of things that he hates. A list, in no predetermined order: 

Having to shake hands with, hug, dance with—or touch in general—alien diplomats that he doesn’t know. Eating beneath the intense scrutiny of potential allies who are curious about human eating habits. Being presented with gifts by grateful civilians and being painted into a hero when in reality, he’s as far from a hero as people come. 

He isn’t comfortable when strangers try to probe into his past; he isn’t comfortable when his friends do it, either. And as guilty as it makes him feel, he _hates_ sharing a headspace with four other people, because sometimes all he can think about is how anytime they form Voltron, any one of them could take advantage of that to flip through his memories if they _really_ wanted to. There’s a level of mistrust he has around everyone, even the people that he trusts more than _anybody,_ and he isn’t comfortable with that, either. 

The one good thing is, Keith is incredibly skilled in hiding his discomfort from people. He knows how to keep himself together when the curious aliens say: _“Do that thing again, but this time more slowly.”_ And when someone gives him a gift, he knows to smile politely and give his thanks in return, and no one has to know that he’s going to toss it out of the nearest airlock the instant he’s back on the castle. 

But there’s this thing about discomfort—the worst thing about it—and it’s the _feeling_ of it. This sensation, gutting and cold, like he would like nothing more than to escape from his body, but he’s overwhelmingly aware that there’s no way out. It’s similar to homesickness, in a way, but only if you took that homesick feeling and amplified it to the encompassing vastness that occupies ninety-seven percent of the entire universe, and then tried to shove all of it back into your chest. 

There is nothing worse than feeling like this in the place that he calls home. 

“So—let me get this straight.” His throat feels too tight, but he makes the most of every molecule of air he can get into his lungs, and he _sounds_ calm, even though he’s begging for someone to tell him that he misheard something Coran said, or that maybe he made up this entire conversation. “You want us to turn Voltron into a . . . a _performance?”_

“Not just any performance, Number Four!” And here’s another thing that contributes to the mass of churning nausea in Keith’s stomach: the fever-brightness of Coran’s eyes when he looks at him, the too-stretched, almost manic curve of his smile when he grins. “The most _famous_ production in the entire known universe! Every planet within every galaxy will know the names of the Voltron Paladins—your greatness will outshine all who have come before you! Think about it, Keith: your name up in lights. Cameras flashing to document your every heroic move. Thousands upon millions of fans. Isn’t that the dream?”

Something is wrong. It’s _obvious_ to Keith that something must be—Coran doesn’t _talk_ like that, or, or _look_ at him like that—but when he glances around the room, he can see that the others, though skeptical, are slowly buying into it. Allura is nodding along, even with the frown turning down the corners of her mouth. Lance and Hunk exchange a series of looks that ends in a synchronous shrug that says, _why the hell not?_

Keith feels like he’s going to throw up. 

“Do we . . . _have_ to do this?” A neutral, level tone; unbothered, or at the most, the brand of chronic irritation he’s associated with. The same casual displeasure that he hears in Allura’s voice when she resignedly replies, “I don’t particularly like it either, Keith, but . . . I suppose it _does_ make sense. It will be a fast and effective way to get the word out there that we are actively fighting the Empire, and could do wonders for the coalition numbers. Numbers we are in _dire_ need of, if we are to have any hope of winning this war.” 

Keith sets his jaw. _So that’s it, then._ He can feel Shiro’s gaze on the side of his face, knows without looking that he’s concerned. If Shiro was still the leader, he would probably bench Keith immediately, and Keith wouldn’t say one word about it, even when the others demanded answers. 

But Shiro isn’t the leader, anymore. _Keith_ is—in whatever semblance of the position still actually rests with him. And he’s screwed his team over too many times lately to deserve a free pass, now. 

“Fine,” he hears himself say, as if his voice is coming from far away, as if he isn’t the one speaking at all. “Coran, I guess you’d better get started on those scripts.” 

It’s later, after everyone else has slowly filtered out after the meeting’s end, that Shiro steps back into the doorway. He leans against the frame, brow tense, and says, “Keith.” That’s all: just his name. But it’s a warning, and Keith feels it like the heaviness in his limbs. 

Tiredly, he reaches up to rub at his eyes. “I know, Shiro.” 

“You . . . don’t have to do this,” he begins slowly. _Delicately._ “I can—” 

“I do.” Keith doesn’t let him finish. He can’t help but think, as he slumps back in his chair, about how they never used to do this to each other. They never cut each other off, and they never spoke like . . . like strangers. There’s no emotion in the words they use and, at least on Keith’s part, he can never tell what Shiro is thinking, anymore. 

He used to know him so well. 

“I didn’t want you to leave.” The words are abruptly spoken, as if they were torn from his mouth without total consciousness. When Keith flits his gaze up to him, he finds Shiro with his own eyes downcast as he toes at the tile with his boot. “I never . . . I didn’t mean to push you away. Or say things the way I did.” 

_Then why did you?_ Keith, for the first time, feels a small flare of anger towards the man in the doorway. But it fizzles out quickly, and leaves him in exactly the same place he was before, and all he can say is, “I know.” He curls his knees into his chest, wraps his arms around them, and waits for Shiro to leave. But he doesn’t; he lingers, this torn look on his face, hesitating. 

“Look, I know that things aren’t—great with us, lately. But regardless of that, I— _you_ . . . can’t do this, Keith. It’s too much, and you have to know that—” 

“I think I can decide what’s too much for me,” Keith clips out. And he watches the way his brother’s face changes, from hesitant worry to something tired, to something Keith has never seen on his face before, but it lances through his chest like a dart when he realizes that he’s just _done._

“Fine,” he says calmly. Keith will think, later, that the calmness is what makes it worse. At least if Shiro had yelled at him, Keith would have a reason to feel miserable. “Do what you want—I know you aren’t going to listen to me anyway. But I refuse to watch you do this to yourself, and I don’t know how to help you anymore if you aren’t even going to try to help yourself. So—don’t expect me to be the one to pick up the pieces when this ends badly.” 

The words sting, but Keith doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t say anything; just meets Shiro’s frustrated gaze with an empty one of his own, until Shiro finally shakes his head and leaves. The room drops into silence when he’s gone, and Keith closes his eyes and listens to it ring. 

In the back of his mind, he becomes aware of how Black is rumbling worriedly, and he wonders how long she’s been doing that. He can’t determine which of them she’s more worried for, and he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_A list of things he hates, in no predetermined order:_

_The way Isabella jumps at the slightest noise, a lightning-fast flash of fear across her face that Keith sees before she can pretend she doesn’t care._

_The sound of Mrs. Camden’s voice when she says, “You’re such a pretty boy, dear. Almost like a girl, do you know?”_

_The memory of blade-sharp smile when, once, Keith had said to him, “My social worker told me Mrs. Camden is a doctor. What do you do, Mr. Camden?”_

_Isabella shaking her head minutely, the gesture barely discernible, her face white as a ghost._

_Blood red nails. Spots in his vision and a bird in the window and someone saying, “They’re going to_ eat you up.” 

_Flipping through the pages—forward? Backward? There’s no way out._

_A split lip and soaked clothes and green eyes like fire:_ “Why do you have to make me do these things to you?” 

_Fingertips on his ribs. Saccharine smiles and cloying sweetness and Keith wants to throw up._ “I could take everything away from you. Do you really want to risk making me angry, Keith?” 

_He wants to go home._

_He doesn’t_ have _a home. The only person who ever loved him is gone._

“You know what isn’t fair? Real love is never going to exist for people like us, Keith. But being unfair doesn’t stop it from being true, and you _know_ that.” 

_Two angry red lines and sheer terror pooling in his heart as it bleeds out and the sound of water rushing but it won’t come_ fast enough _and a banging that won’t stop, the noise_ never stops—

“You’re lucky to be alive, kid.” 

_Blood red nails: same shade, different hands. Critical, criticizing eyes._

“Why did you keep going back there?” 

_He hears:_ if only you hadn’t been so stupid. 

_He hears:_ everything that happened to you is all your fault. 

_Screaming, screaming, screaming._

  
  


_____

  
  


“Wow. You know, when Allura told us that we were going to be the greatest defenders of the entire universe, I definitely didn’t see our career going in _this_ direction.” 

This afternoon finds them all in the lounge; Lance proposed the idea of reviewing the official script of _The Voltron Show_ for the first time together, and no one else had really had any other pressing plans so they figured, _why not?_ This is how Keith finds himself with Lance’s arm slung over his shoulders, nearly convinced that the warm weight of him and the clean, pleasant scent of whatever lotion Lance put on earlier is enough to distract him from—everything else. 

“What direction?” Pidge is snarking; more than the others, she’s the most vocal in displaying her displeasure with Coran’s script. She’s already poked holes in the plots and torn apart pretty much every line of dialogue—she looks two seconds away from tearing her hair out, or possibly throwing her holopad in rage. “Having our lives turned into a cheesy action movie franchise with bad acting and bullshit scientific jargon? Because _I_ think this makes _perfect_ sense. You know, maybe if we just played all the _Avengers_ movies on every frequency from our galaxy to Zarkon’s, he’d watch them and realize how cliché he really is, then keel over from immense self-disappointment and shame. Hooray, the universe is saved, and I never have to read the words _'_ _woozoobelum erotica frequency’_ out loud ever again.” 

“What do you think that is, even?” Lance wonders, and her expression darkens. “I don’t know,” she says, each word clipped and over-pronounced, “but I do not want to find out.” 

“Maybe he’ll let you change it?” Hunk, ever the optimistic mediator, tries to placate her. “I mean, I doubt any of this is set in _stone._ It’s like a first draft, right? Revisions will be made, probably.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” she mutters, but she doesn’t look very hopeful. Keith gets it exactly; just an initial overview of how Coran wants the Black Paladin to be portrayed has kick-started this squirming, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. It’s another one of those uncomfortable things—it falls into the _playing the hero_ category—but Keith doesn’t need Shiro around to shoot him subtle, worried looks for him to know that he’s drifting into some murky waters, here. 

Short, ten-minute plays in hospitals and on swap-moons are one thing. Those were nothing; Keith could handle that—the small crowds and the awkwardness—and he even had a little bit of fun then, because Lance was the only one who was really _selling_ it and he kept making him laugh. Keith thinks he would do a million more space-mall skits if it meant he could get out of one of these shows, because at least when it was that small, Keith didn’t have to push down the sickening knowledge that he was being made into an object for someone else’s entertainment. At least then, the only cameras were the security cameras, and maybe one or two teenagers’ cell phones. 

But he’s not going to think about that. He slams the lid back on _that_ box before any unpleasantries can float through, zones back in just in time to hear Lance say: “—I mean, I’m just saying, _I_ should definitely be the hot paladin, right? Don’t get me wrong, Keith, you know I think you’re amazing, but is it a _little_ unfair that you’re getting the most witty one-liners and opportunities to stare soulfully into the camera? A bit.” 

There’s a smile in Lance’s voice, and his eyes are all bright where he’s glancing at him, so he knows that he isn’t really upset, and this is the part where he’s supposed to joke back—maybe say something about how Lance is going to have to try a little harder to win the hearts of the masses. But instead all that comes out is a raspy and regrettably sincere, “You can have all of them, if you can convince Coran.” 

Lance’s expression flickers a little, confusion that Keith’s gone off-script, and he opens his mouth with what looks like a question on his face, but before he can ask it, Allura loudly speaks over Hunk and Pidge in the background—abruptly ending the debate Keith hadn’t been aware they were having: “Well, at least _you_ didn’t have to deal with the man who might as well be your uncle turning into a literal infant in your arms!” 

Keith excuses himself shortly thereafter, citing a headache and a need to lie down. He isn’t lying about the headache—he snags a bottle of what the others insist on calling space-Advil from the medbay as he’s passing by, swallows two bubblegum pink pills down dry—but being alone with his thoughts and nothing to do is the last thing he wants right now, so when the hall splits into the fork that can take him either to the personal quarters or the training deck, he acts on instinct and prays that Lance won’t come looking for him any time soon. 

As much as he hates to admit it, Keith’s heart is heavy with the knowledge that Shiro was probably right. He can’t see a single way that this is going to end well. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_Keith does not dream of the desert, but of a Galra base in a sector whose name he’d forgotten nearly immediately after learning it. He dreams in shades of gray and deep, pulsing purples, and when he lifts his hand, it’s lost in shadows._

_He remembers this base: remembers creeping through the shadows behind Bez, remembers the voices of their other team members like radio static in his earpiece—but this time, the other Blades are nowhere in sight. He is alone._

_The realization makes something thick coalesce in his throat, and he wants to turn away. But then there’s Kolivan crackling to life in his ear, saying:_ “Keith, finish the mission,” _and so Keith pushes past that thick feeling and continues on._

_His steps are as silent as the breath he’s refusing to release when he reaches his destination: a set of nondescript doors, twin sheets of metal crowned by a bar of ultraviolet light. He presses his hand to the scanner and it opens, and then he’s standing in the doorway and assessing the room._

_Two guards: one on the left, one on the right. Keith thinks that he can make this work; ideally, he’d have someone with him, but he’s been a soldier in this war for a long time now, and he’s faced far more intimidating numbers than this. So he goes right first, sneaking silently, and this is the same way that the sentinel goes down: without a word, or a cry, or even a gasp as Keith’s blade cleaves straight through his back to his heart._

_Glancing furtively up, Keith checks to make sure the other soldier hasn’t noticed his presence. He’s tapping at the screens in front of him, appearing completely focused, and something like grim satisfaction settles in his chest. Keith has never been the biggest fan of killing someone without a fair fight; but then, the things these people are fighting for aren’t fair, so in the grand scheme of things, that probably balances out the scales. Or maybe it doesn’t, and Keith is going to hell for this._

_Either way—he has a mission. An objective. So he circles back the way he came, creeping along in the black that clouds the perimeter of the room, and he readies his blade to strike._

_Within one silent breath and the next, the Galra tenses and spins, and before Keith can so much as process what’s happening, he’s pinned to the wall by his throat and his blade has been stolen from his grip—cast away like a child’s toy to the ground. He’s frozen in shock, seized by a sudden visceral fear, his heart the only live thing inside of him as it jumps and flutters and_ runs. _But his feet are trapped in blocks of ice and his lungs have forgotten how to function and he hasn’t been this afraid in so long—he knows what’s coming, he_ knows, _but it doesn’t stop him from being afraid, and it doesn’t stop the first feeble word that he’s able to regain from being a gasping, useless, “No._ No—” 

_And there are yellow eyes gleaming in this darkness on top of a feral, terrifying flash of sharp teeth that Keith thinks is supposed to be a sinister sort of grin, and he hates himself for comparing him to a lion because lions make him think of Voltron, but that’s_ exactly _what he looks like, he’s a lion and Keith is the prey and he’s so_ scared—

_Squirming now, fighting beneath his grip, pushing at shoulders and torso and kicking out with his now-unstuck legs; this is the_ fight _part of fight-flight-or-freeze, and he’s aiming for flight but he’ll fight if he has to so long as it means he’s not_ stuck here, _as long as he’s not trapped beneath this weight and there aren’t hands on his skin—_ there are hands on his skin, fingernails dragging and palms too heavy and they aren’t supposed to be there, why are they there— _Keith thinks he’s sobbing but his tears aren’t doing anything and he_ can’t _do anything because his hands are pinned above his head now, he doesn’t remember when that happened but it means he can’t fight, it means he’s trapped, it means—_

_There’s a ring of needles sinking into his throat and the bite burns like a rare kind of venom and he thinks that he’s_ dying, _and the surface behind him is cold and hard on his bare skin and everything is cold and hard and his throat hurts from screaming and something is sticky and it might be his tears but it might be something else and he just wants it to_ stop, _why won’t it stop, why won’t it stopstopstopstopSTOP—_

Keith jerks upright in his bed with a fresh sob already tearing from his throat, gasping for air as he scrabbles for purchase on the sheets beneath him, on his sweat-soaked shirt. The vivid pictures are still flashing in his mind and he’s shaking, and his bones are _aching,_ and he feels so disgusting that he thinks if he doesn’t get clean right now he might actually _die._

Barely lucid, he scrambles out of his sheets, peeling away his damp clothes like a layer of skin, determined to scrub the rest of it off when he stumbles into the shower—but it’s all he can do to sit beneath the stream of water, because his legs are too weak and shaky to stand on. He closes his eyes and digs his fingertips into the place where teeth sank in his dream and it’s only when they come away with nothing that he realizes. _It wasn’t real. It didn’t happen. You’re fine, nothing happened._

It _didn’t_ happen, and he knows that—he _does—_ but that shaky feeling is in his brain too, and it’s followed by this sick, terrifying question: _but what if it did?_

Playing this game has never done Keith much good, but it’s never stopped him from doing it anyway. _What if?_ has never answered any of his questions, and though in his saner moments he thinks that’s probably a good thing, it’s never been enough to soothe his suffocating anxiety over them. The fear is almost obsessive, his lungs snagging on _what if? what if?_ and he can’t make it stop, even though he _wants_ it to, it doesn’t _stop—_

Questions like—

_What if Bez hadn’t been there that night?_

Like—

_What if I had been all alone?_

And older ones, ghosts creeping out of their graves—

_What if I never left Earth?_

_What if I was stuck there forever?_

_What if I’d never met Shiro?_

The question about his brother might be the worst. Keith has to press his hand to his mouth to muffle his next string of sobs, because he’s always _hated_ wondering. There have been times where he was convinced that he _didn’t_ actually meet him—that it was all some dream born out of desperation, and he’s going to wake up some morning next to a monster again and realize he’s just imagined the past seven years of his life and Shiro has never existed. 

_Shiro._ Keith wants his brother so badly that it _hurts,_ but when he’s able to think clearly he remembers that even though he’s just down the hall, he might as well have never come home. Keith feels awful for thinking it, he knows he must be the _worst_ person for it, but it doesn’t feel like his brother is really _here,_ and he thinks that it might actually be worse than when he was really gone. 

Keith remembers Shiro, days ago, saying: _"_ _Don’t expect me to be the one to pick up the pieces when this ends badly,”_ and his chest feels like it’s splitting open. 

He remembers years ago, an _awful_ phone call and being too afraid to sleep in his own bed that night, looking at Shiro in the darkened living room and saying through his tears: _“I’m too old to be this scared. I’m too old to need somebody.”_ And Shiro had told him: _“Everyone needs somebody,”_ and held him tightly while he cried himself to sleep, and he’d woken up the next morning on the couch with Shiro’s arm curled around him and the smell of Adam making pancakes in the kitchen. 

He never thought he would miss those days, but he realizes now that he would give nearly _anything_ to be that close to him again. 

He’s not sure he’s ever going to truly get Shiro back, and that realization is so painful that it’s like hearing about the _Kerberos_ failure all over again. Like coming back from a successful battle and realizing that he’s not there anymore. 

Finally, after an eternity of grief, Keith manages to drag himself back out of the shower and into a clean set of clothes. And then he stands in the middle of his room on swaying feet for a long minute, his heart begging him to go down the hall and say _please, I know I can’t do anything right lately but please don’t give up on me yet, I’m too scared to be alone tonight, please let me stay._ But his head holds the reins, this time, and it guides his feet back to bed, curls him up and pulls the blankets over him like that will be enough to protect him from the cold, and ignores the icy tears that drip one by one down the bridge of his nose until he falls back into fitful, leaden sleep. 

  
  


_____

  
  


On the night of their first show, Keith sequesters himself in the bathroom a half-varga before the performance is meant to start so that he can talk himself down from a panic attack.

It’s been rising gradually all day, in that curious way that his body is able to recognize the warning signs but isn’t able to do anything to prepare him beyond that. It’s like this sleeping beast that has a permanent residence coiled in the pit of his stomach: stretching slowly as it wakes, with the unhurried manner of someone with all the time in the world to spend at another’s expense. And then all at once, it comes to life with a snapping roar, jaws unhinging to take a bite out of Keith’s painstakingly perfected illusion of being okay. 

So Keith stands with his hands clenched around the edge of the bathroom counter, in a room that’s strange for a bathroom even for his extensive list of strange alien bathrooms that he’s encountered, and tries to remember what he’s doing this for. 

_The list. Think about the list._ It’s still sitting on his desk, unobtrusive and mostly forgotten and probably buried underneath a dozen other things, now, but he _remembers_ it. So he looks in the mirror and he thinks: _one,_ and he takes a deep breath. He thinks: _two,_ and takes another, and he goes on like this until he gets to eight, and then he looks in the mirror and he reminds himself: “You don’t have any more room to make mistakes.” 

He thinks about losing all of the people that he loves; he thinks of watching them disappear right in front of him in the same way that Shiro slowly is. Fear, he thinks, must be the most powerful motivator, because by the time Lance comes knocking on the door to let him know: “Keith? We’re on in five,” he has convinced himself that what’s about to happen out there will be nowhere near as bad as the would-be future where he screws everything up. 

He almost loses his resolve as soon as he joins the others in the wings; coming up to stand beside Lance, looking out over the stadium’s worth of adoring _Voltron_ fans, listening to their screams, eyes catching on spotlights and yes, there they are, they don’t look anything like Earthen cameras but they function the same way, don’t they? A camera is still a camera, and that’s—

There’s movement in the corner of Keith’s vision and he follows it to Shiro moving to stand next to Coran, who’s screeching something into his headset, and crossing his arms over his chest in a way that Keith might think was casual if he hadn’t known him for a third of his life. But the tension in his jaw says everything, even when Shiro notices his staring and looks back at him and there’s nothing but cool blankness in his eyes. 

He doesn’t think that Keith can do it. He thinks he’s going to fall apart. 

So Keith sets his own jaw, and he turns to face forward, and he doesn’t look at him again, even when Coran shouts that _“It’s go time!”_ and shoves him just a little bit too roughly toward the stage. He feels Lance’s presence at his back and hears a narrator speaking over the cheering crowd, and he looks right into the blinding lights as everything in his head turns into a sheet of white fire. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_—and everything is too hot—too-sharp fingernails scraping along his ribs, he can’t_ breathe— _a voice in his ear crooning his name: “Keith—”_

“Keith.” A hand on his back, up and down his spine; a voice that’s familiar in a way that makes Keith think _home,_ and then reminds him why he shouldn’t think that anymore. He closes his eyes as the wave of dizzying nausea lurches through him, leaning instinctively to retch into the toilet that is conveniently in front of him. He can feel Shiro’s hands in his hair, holding it back from his face in a way that’s always reminded Keith of how his dad used to take care of him when he was sick, and then it’s a fight against his body to stick to the vomiting and not devolve into pathetic sobbing. _Not here. Not now. You don’t deserve it._

“Thought you said you wouldn’t be here,” he mutters, when the wave finally finishes its crashing and leaves him beached on the shore. Shiro presses a bottle into his space until Keith uncurls a fist and takes it, feeling the coolness of it against his fingers. He doesn’t uncap it; his hands are aching, and it’s all he can do to keep them from trembling. 

“I shouldn’t have said that. I . . . shouldn’t have said a lot of things to you,” Shiro says. There’s something deeply heavy in his voice, and it takes Keith a moment to register that it’s guilt. And then Shiro is reaching over to take the cap off for him, and he waits while Keith tips enough into his mouth to rinse out the bad taste, spits it back out, and only then takes an actual sip of it. Except Keith kind of misses, and a trail of it spills down a trail from his chin to his neck, and it’s uncomfortable but he doesn’t have the energy to wipe it away, so it stays and trickles a line down beneath the collar of his shirt. 

“So why did you?” he asks. His voice is both too quiet and too loud in this room, and it’s only now that Keith recognizes this is the same bathroom from earlier. Everything has this sort of . . . spongy quality, even though it doesn’t _look_ spongy—it looks like a normal bathroom, except it’s all muted shades of orangey-yellow and gray. Kind of hideous, but Keith’s had panic attacks in worse bathrooms. 

“Something . . .” Shiro begins, falters. Keith waits. “Something is wrong, since I came back. I don’t know why, I _know_ it doesn’t make sense, but—I don’t want to say half of the things I say. And the things I _do_ want to say . . . they come out all wrong, and for some reason it’s so much _worse_ with you and I . . . I don’t know why.” There’s so much regret in his voice that Keith wants to tell him to stop, because he doesn’t want to listen to it, but he stays silent. Shiro breathes in deeply, and Keith recognizes the breathing pattern he’s falling into immediately, and the way he follows it is almost instinctive. _In for five, out for seven._

“But this isn’t about me,” he finally says. His hand is still on Keith’s back, and he only comes back to this fact when Shiro starts his soothing up-down rhythm again. “Just . . . I’m really, _really_ sorry, and we’re going to come back to that later. But right now—how are you feeling?” 

“Bad,” Keith says bluntly. He knows that he’s tired of the bullshit, and he thinks Shiro definitely is too, so he’s doing them both a favor for once and not pretending either of them will buy it. He leans back into Shiro, allowing him to take on more of his weight, and rests his head on his shoulder. “I don’t remember what happened. Or how we got here. Care to fill in the gaps?” 

“You did the show,” Shiro starts, as he shifts to better accommodate the uncomfortable angle Keith’s neck is at. “Perfectly. You knew all of the cues and delivered every line and it was honestly fucking terrifying to watch, because I could see in your eyes that you had completely checked out of the whole situation, and I hate thinking about how you got so good at that.”

Well, that—could pass for a positive, Keith supposes. He’ll take what he can get. He slumps a little more against Shiro, breathes a shallow sigh of relief. “So I didn’t fuck it up?” 

“No,” Shiro says, but there’s a _tone_ in his voice, and Keith already knows he’s going to hate whatever he says next. “But just because you were able to get through that once _does not mean_ you can or should do it again. And you _shouldn’t._ You’re going to hurt yourself like this, and for what? We can figure something else out, Keith. You don’t have to do this stupid show to prove that you’re a good black paladin. Forget everything I said before, okay? Scrap it; it’s bullshit that I shouldn’t have ever said.” 

“Noted,” Keith mutters, but he shakes his head as best as he can with it pressed into Shiro’s shoulder. “But it’s not that. Not the black paladin thing. It’s . . . a me thing.” 

“What kind of you thing?” 

He hesitates, trying to find a way to explain that won’t end in Shiro saying, _Keith, that isn’t true._ Because it _is,_ okay, Keith knows how these things work, and just because Shiro exists doesn’t make him the rule—it makes him the exception. 

“I messed up,” he whispers, and even though they both know it’s true the confession is still as difficult to say as if each word is coated in syrup and keeps gluing to the roof of his mouth. “I almost did something really bad, and, and it’s something I swore I’d _never_ do, but I was going to anyway. I was going to _leave._ And I know the others are trying to move on but . . . but now it’s always going to be there. That I did that. That I was going to be the person who left. And they won’t be able to trust me again, ever.” 

He can feel Shiro’s long exhale along the side of his body that’s curved into him. “Keith . . .” 

But Keith pretends he doesn’t hear, pretends he doesn’t know what Shiro is thinking, and he goes on, because it’s the first time he’s fully letting himself think about it and it’s definitely the last time he’s going to speak of it, so he might as well get it all out. “So I have to be _perfect,_ Shiro. I can’t mess up again—I can’t give them another reason to doubt me. If that means fighting a Galra fleet on negative seventy-two hours of sleep and winning, then fine. If it means participating in some stupid acting gig to bring in more coalition numbers? Then I’ll do it. Because—because maybe they won’t trust me again, but I can spend the rest of my life trying, right? And isn’t that what matters? That even if they don’t think I’m reliable, I’ll spend every minute of the rest of my life being that for them, and whatever else they need. And that’s . . . fine. I can do that. I mean, I’ve spent almost my whole life being whatever someone else wanted, so it’s—it’s not like I’m not _used_ to it.” 

Shiro is quiet for a long moment. And then he sighs again. “Keith . . . the team still trusts you.” 

Keith shakes his head immediately. “They can’t. I almost _left them._ That’s not something that can be forgiven.” 

There’s a painful truth buried in here, Keith thinks. Something that neither of them _wants_ to acknowledge, but they both feel the dangerous weight of it like a sword hanging over their heads. Keith bites the inside of his cheek and grips at a fistful of Shiro’s formalwear jacket, knowing that it’s probably going to wrinkle and knowing that Shiro isn’t going to care or even notice, probably. 

“I miss you,” he whispers, and he thinks back to a couple nights ago and crying himself back to sleep all alone. And he thinks about telling Shiro about that night—and he doesn’t. 

Shiro tightens the hold of the arm he has wrapped around him—the human one: one of the arms that had held him through countless sleepless nights and picked him up off the ground on blurry days and pointed him in the right direction when he let Keith drive in the desert and he started to get a little bit lost. Shiro always knew how to guide them out of the wilderness, always knew how to get them back home. 

“I am so sorry,” he says now, and his voice is broken and crackly in a way that Keith has only ever heard maybe a handful of times in his life, and it causes something so immensely _sad_ to spear through him. Because Shiro’s apology isn’t like any of Keith’s; Keith’s apologies, even at their most genuine, are always tinged by the fear of what’s going to happen if he isn’t forgiven. But Shiro apologizes like he already knows he won’t be, and like Keith knows it too, and he’s afraid because the worst thing that could happen _is_ happening, and he can’t do anything to stop it. 

They remain like this for a long time: wrapped up in each other’s arms on the floor like they can stop everything from falling apart; like they can glue back together the trust they once had and end all of the hurt spreading between them like eternally-expanding fissures; like maybe, if they don’t let go, they can pretend that Shiro is younger, and Keith is younger, and they still live in a time of their lives where Shiro could tell him: _“Things are going to get better, now,”_ and he and Keith could both believe it. 

  
  



	7. speaking in morse code

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The queen hums; not approving or disapproving, just noise. She approaches until she’s standing at his elbow, then leans both of her own against the banister. Her silvery hair flashes as she tilts her head, eyes gleaming as green as the sky above when she curiously notes, “You are telling the truth, yet also a lie. I suspect you are very skilled at this.” 
> 
> “I . . .” Keith is caught off-guard, unsure of how to respond. It feels a bit like an accusation, but the truth is, the way she says it sounds like an assessment. Like someone just has to look at him for a little bit, and they can puzzle everything out. “Well, aren’t most people?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the kudos and comments so far! i know i don't reply to all of them, but literally every single one warms my heart and makes my entire day. you guys are awesome and i love you. enjoy <3
> 
> trigger warnings for:   
> -blood (nothing too graphic, but it's there)  
> -alcohol

_ “Surprise.”  _

Lance’s voice is hushed against the shell of his ear; a jarring contrast to the bright exuberance of only moments ago, when he’d bounced onto the bridge to steal Keith away from work, citing: “ _ It’s important, Keith, you have to come with me, I swear it’ll be worth stepping away from your boring alliance papers, give me half a varga, babe.”  _

Keith, admittedly, hadn’t put up much of a fight. (Meaning: he’d abandoned the report the moment he had a permissible excuse, tossing his holopad to the side in favor of Lance’s much more enticing hand.) And then there was a somewhat clumsy shuffle of hands over eyes and stumbling over feet, muffled curses and laughter as he let Lance tug him into the elevator. It’s almost unbelievable, he thinks, how far they’ve come from the teenagers who couldn’t even guide each other through an invisible maze without getting the other one shocked. He’d trust Lance to guide him anywhere. 

Now, Lance’s hands fall away from their temporary position blocking his vision, taking a blanket of heat with him, and Keith laments the loss until he blinks the spots out of his eyes and takes in their new surroundings. All of the air vacuums out of his lungs in a quiet, disbelieving gasp. 

Lance has brought him into the stars. 

“Don’t worry,” Lance hurries to assure him as he rambles out onto the completely sheer deck, turning to face him as he explains, “The glass is one-thousand-percent unbreakable. I know because I asked Allura, after the first time I accidentally stumbled up here and had a heart attack.” His confidence would almost be comforting if, in fact, Keith was afraid. But he’s not. 

He steps into the room, stares in fascination as his boots collide with the galaxy beneath them, spilling out far below the castleship like a bottle of starlit ink across paper. When he looks up, he finds much of the same above them: far-off galaxies spinning and swirling like the eyes of hurricanes; nearer, shadowy shapes that could be planets or simply space debris. All around them, the room is awash in the glow of stars lightyears away, but each one is so  _ present  _ that they appear to be right at their fingertips. 

It’s both incredibly like the observation deck that he and Lance both frequent, and nothing like it at all. The main difference is the excited, erratic pacing of Keith’s heart, as his brain tries to wrap his mind around the fact that he should be in  _ danger  _ right now—should be floating way out into empty space with no protective gear, shouldn’t possibly be able to breathe out here, because he’s  _ outside— _ but he isn’t. 

“It’s amazing,” isn’t nearly adequate enough to describe it, but it’s what he says, turning to find Lance beaming at him proudly. And Lance, he thinks suddenly, must be the most amazing thing of all: he’s painted in shades of starlight like the most beautiful canvas he’s ever seen, and he’s the last beautiful thing Keith ever wants to see. He wants to take Lance’s hand and walk with him until the castleship’s barriers end and they have to create their own path across the universe.  _ I would follow you anywhere,  _ he thinks about saying, but instead he steps across glass that might as well be empty air to wrap his arms around his neck, to reel him forward and kiss him. 

“Wow, I should have brought you up here a long time ago,” Lance says against his mouth like he’s just had a grand revelation. Keith rolls his eyes, but he knows even without being able to see his own face that he must look so stupidly  _ fond  _ right now. 

“How long have you known about this place?” Keith is certain that he’s never been this far up before; there’s no way he would’ve found his way here on his own. Even though they’ve lived on this castle for three years, the ship is still as vast and endless as it had the day they’d stepped out of Blue and into the front hall. They could probably explore the castle for the rest of their Voltron career and still never uncover every single room in it. 

“A while,” Lance admits. “When you were going on Blade missions, I wandered a lot. Not much else to do, y’know—it’s not like I’m much help to Hunk and Pidge when they’re working on techy stuff, and I get bored. According to Allura, there’re three other towers like this on the ship, but I haven’t found them yet. I’ve been treating it kind of like a scavenger hunt. Want to help me collect them all?” 

“Depends,” Keith tilts his head, plays with the short strands of hair at the nape of his neck and asks, “Do I get to kiss you in all of them?” 

“Um,  _ duh.  _ That’s a given, Keith.” It’s Lance’s turn to roll  _ his  _ eyes, and Keith bites his lip on a smile and wonders, not for the first time, what gives Lance the sort of magic to just be able to  _ do  _ things like this. All he has to do is  _ say  _ something, and suddenly Keith is smiling like a lovesick fool and can’t remember why he was having such a bad day before. 

And now Lance is pulling away, tugging on Keith’s hands as he guides him across the star-streaked floor. “So like, originally I was going to bring you up here and we were going to just sit on the floor  _ in starlight,  _ and it was going to be the coolest, most romantic shit, right?” he says, an obvious build-up into a conflict. Keith nods, an indication that he is both listening and following, and Lance continues, “Right. But then, uh. Then I realized that glass gets  _ super  _ uncomfortable after a while, so . . . sorry, Keith. We’re going to sit on a blanket instead. This is a space picnic now.” Lance gestures with a flourish to a set-up in the middle of the room: there’s a platter of pastries in the center of the thick blanket and a pair of juice pouches, set at certain perfect angles that let Keith  _ know,  _ without having to ask, that Lance probably spent a good half-varga up here just setting things up to be absolutely flawless. 

The thought forms a lump of overwhelming emotions in his throat, and among the most prevalent of them is a sudden rush of  _ guilt.  _ He hasn’t even thought of doing something like this for Lance before; he’s been so wrapped up in Voltron and alliance meetings and dealing with his brain and  _ The Voltron Show  _ that he sometimes feels like he can’t even  _ breathe,  _ let alone do something nice for his boyfriend.  _ Those aren’t good enough excuses, _ he realizes now, because Lance is just as busy as he is, and yet he  _ still  _ found the time to put this together. 

“You . . . you didn’t have to do this,” Keith says softly—too softly,  _ too much,  _ because Lance looks at him for a long moment like he doesn’t understand, like he’s trying to figure something out. After a moment, he gives up, guides Keith around the perfectly-placed throw pillows, and nudges him to sit down. “I wanted to,” he replies, so honest that it makes Keith’s chest ache when he takes his hand and threads their fingers together. “It’s been a hard week—for everyone, I think, but especially for you. And don’t try denying it, because I can tell,” Lance says, eyeing him deliberately right as Keith opens his mouth to protest. “Listen, just . . . you deserve a break, okay? And what kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t give you at least that? I already know the answer—a bad one.” 

_ You could never be a bad boyfriend,  _ springs right into Keith’s mouth, and he’s barely able to clamp down on it before it escapes. That’s the kind of vulnerability that he’s determined for Lance to  _ never  _ hear; there’s only so much more he can give him without everything else unraveling. He’s already too aware of the dangerous game he’s playing: it’s a difficult balance, trying to be with Lance without constantly lying to him. Because Lance deserves better than his lies and his secrecy, and Keith  _ knows that.  _ But he can’t tell him the truth, because the truth means losing him for good, and he—can’t let Lance go. Not now that he knows what it’s like to have him. 

Being with Lance is the only time when Keith feels like he can breathe, lately. Everything else is hard, and everything else hurts, and everything else makes him want to be  _ somewhere else, anywhere else— _ but Lance makes everything feel okay. He makes everything brighter, and his light is the only one that doesn’t burn. 

“Lance. . . .” Keith says, his name light in his mouth, but the pressure in his lungs is nearly suffocating. He squeezes his hand and hopes that it’s enough when he looks at him, that it’s enough when he  _ means it  _ when he tells him, “Thank you.” 

“It’s really nothing,” Lance says, but his eyes flicker over Keith’s face like he’s beginning to wonder if that’s really true. “You deserve it.” He repeats it like he believes it. Keith doesn’t know how to tell him that he doesn’t. He  _ doesn’t.  _

_ I don’t deserve you.  _ The unvoiced confession is frightening, stealing the oxygen from his brain until he’s almost dizzy, but he knows that it’s the truest thing about this moment, spoken or not. He doesn’t deserve Lance—the fact that he won’t tell him  _ that  _ much is proof enough.  _ I don’t deserve you. I will never be enough to deserve you.  _

But Keith doesn’t want to think about it: he wants to believe in Lance’s truths, regardless of how subject they are to change. He thinks he’s a little in love not just with Lance, but the beliefs that he brings with him—Lance thinks Keith is  _ good,  _ he thinks Keith deserves to have nice things, and maybe Keith would love to be able to believe in that, too. He knows he doesn’t deserve it, but he  _ wishes  _ he could; there’s this tiny, desperate part of him that’s clinging to the hope that maybe, as long as he can keep Lance believing in him, by some miracle he might be worth his faith someday, after all. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Lance hadn’t been wrong in saying that it’s been a hard week. It has been—for all of them—possibly one of the worst weeks since Voltron first started. Everyone is tense, stretched thin by the slamming waves on all sides: endless alliance meetings on top of taxing negotiation deals on top of the brand new  _ Voltron Show.  _ According to Coran, the ratings are through the roof, meaning that production has continued past the first episode. Which is— _ great.  _ Just great. 

Now they’re dealing with a Pidge who is pissed off at nearly all hours of the day (Coran wouldn’t accept any of her changes to the script, and she spends most of their rehearsal time fuming and refusing to memorize lines but then doing it anyway), a Hunk who’s always stressed because he has the hardest time of them all with memorizing the scripts (that, along with his stage fright and the fact that the character Coran’s turning him into is something that  _ none of them  _ agree with), and an Allura who’s at her limits and looks like she might collapse from exhaustion at any moment. There’s himself, now permanently living in a hellish daze, and his brother, back to being tense with him and receiving tension from all sides. But the most worrying of all—at least, to Keith—is Lance. 

Lance: their brightest, most optimistic paladin. Lance, who has taken it upon himself to radiate enough sunshine for six other people. He’s the one bouncing around to distribute pouches of water when he notices someone looks a little dehydrated; the one memorizing everyone’s lines  _ just in case  _ someone forgets one of theirs during a show and needs the prompt; the one keeping Allura and Keith off the training deck past certain hours and  _ still  _ finding time to train, himself. He’s constantly in motion but  _ none _ of it seems to be getting to him. Keith doesn’t know how that’s  _ possible.  _ Some days, he wonders how Lance can even be a real person. Every day, he becomes less and less convinced that he  _ is. _

Because here’s Lance, setting aside time just for the two of them, saying:  _ “Hey, even A-list celebrities like ourselves have to find ways to keep the romance alive.”  _

Here’s Lance, talking Pidge down from a rant, the only one who could dare to set a hand on her shoulder and  _ not  _ have it bitten off:  _ “Listen, I understand your frustration. Let’s take five and go drown our sorrows in space-Capri Suns.”  _

Lance, with a smile that  _ never  _ falters. Lance, who sparkles and radiates and wins the hearts of everyone who catches a glimpse of him on a holoscreen. Lance, who . . . becomes an alliance term on the next planet they visit. 

“Wait—what?” 

Lance blinks. His bafflement, mirrored by everyone else on the team, is undisguised as he glances first at Allura, then at Keith, then slowly points to himself as he looks back to the queen of Yuu’conia with question marks scribbled across his face. “Your— _ entire  _ negotiation term is, essentially . . . me. That’s what you’re saying?” 

Queen Yeia’s face is a mask of severity and coolness; Keith can’t read anything past it. Voltron has never come into any contact with the Yuu’conians before, so none of them are well-versed in their race’s brand of humor; they’ve made the mistake of assuming serious comments or requests were jokes before, and  _ that _ is the only reason that keeps their mouths shut now. Even though, at a quick glance at their faces, he can tell that it’s what they  _ all  _ assume this must be. 

Granted, Queen Yeia is young for her species, according to the brief articles Allura had made them go over before they arrived here this morning. At what would equate approximately twelve in human years, she had become the ruler of Yuu’conia in the midst of a war with a neighboring planet that killed her entire family. A decaphoeb later, she’s the thirteen-year-old queen of a highly self-sufficient planet: her people have kept to themselves, putting all of their energy into the rebuilding efforts and returning to peace. They had heard virtually nothing about Zarkon or Voltron before Allura managed to make contact with them earlier this week. 

In appearance, Queen Yeia is small, with limbs like the most delicate branches of a tree and wings that compose more of her body weight than her actual body. Looking at her, though, is  _ uncannily  _ similar to how Keith imagines Allura must have looked at that age. Queen Yeia carries herself the same way, speaks in the same way. She’s a diplomat, but more importantly, a  _ leader,  _ and it shows. 

And now she opens her mouth and takes them all by surprise, because evidently, this is  _ not  _ a joke. “Indeed,” she says, in a voice free of inflection. “Paladin Lance will consent to my terms, or there will be no alliance. I assumed, given their lighthearted nature, that you would find no problems within them.” 

“Well . . .” Allura says slowly, calculating, but even she is visibly taken aback when Keith flicks his gaze to her again. “It’s not that there are problems, per se. It is just that—well. We assumed, given all that your planet has suffered recently, your stipulations would be a bit more . . . exacting. What we are asking of you in return is nothing lighthearted at all. Are you certain that there is—absolutely nothing else you would like from us?” 

The young queen’s eyes flash, twin pupil-less green flames of annoyance. “You’re patronizing me,” she notes. “You think I do not understand the severity of your war.” Allura remains silent at this. Queen Yeia stands up, both hands coming down to rest firmly on the table. She glares severely. 

“I understand perfectly well,  _ Princess  _ Allura,” Queen Yeia says the word  _ princess  _ with scorn. At Keith’s sides, both Allura and Pidge bristle, but they remain silent as the girl continues. “I have endured war for nearly my entire lifetime. I lost my parents to war. I  _ witnessed  _ the murder of my little brother to rebels, and countless other such horrific things. It is because of these things—because I have  _ seen  _ how taxing war can be on its soldiers—that I did not want to demand more of you than you can feasibly give. My planet has survived perfectly fine all on our own, and it is possible that we could send you away and never hear another word of Zarkon again. You need us more than we need you, so I would suggest you not underestimate my intelligence. I  _ intended _ what I said and stand by my request—regardless of how frivolous it may seem to you. If we are to be allies, you must at least show me this much respect.” 

There’s a long, tense moment of uncomfortable silence. Queen Yeia breaks it by turning expectantly to Lance, his answer clearly the only one that matters to her now. “So? Do we have a deal?” 

Lance, again, shifts his gaze across the table to Allura and Keith in question. Keith shrugs, a little uncomfortable and a little unsure. (He’s reasonably certain those issues are his own, though—not really applicable to this situation.) After another moment passes, Allura inclines her head. So Lance nods back, turns to Queen Yeia, and says: “I mean, I don’t see why not? It  _ does  _ sound fun. And you know I never turn down an opportunity to party.” He flashes the sort of  _ Loverboy Lance  _ smile that undoubtedly got him so roped into this in the first place, and the young queen’s mood immediately shifts as she smiles back, delighted. 

“Oh,  _ wonderful,” _ she says, and claps her hands together. The sound echoes in the large, stone dining room. “I do  _ so  _ look forward to spending the next couple of quintants with you, Paladin Lance!” 

“Well,” Allura says drily to Keith, when she’s sure the young ruler won’t hear. “The favoritism is not apparent at all.” 

  
  


_____

  
  


“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” 

It’s later that night; all of their friends have already gone to bed. Keith and Lance sit by the stone fireplace, wrapped up in sweaters and a pile of blankets because castles made entirely of stone apparently don’t have good insulation. Lance has his chin hooked over Keith’s shoulder, and he can feel the rise and fall of his breaths against his back. It’s . . . unexpectedly soothing. 

His hair is tousled by Lance’s breath as he tilts his head. “Okay with which part? Having an entire episode of  _ The Voltron Show  _ dedicated to me, starring me, written and co-starred by a royal teenage fan? Or going to the royal teenage fan’s birthday party as her celebrity date?” 

Put like that, it really does sound kind of ridiculous. But that doesn’t taken away from the seriousness of the question, at least for Keith. “Either one, I guess.” 

Lance hums, thinking it over. “I mean, yeah? It’s fine. I mean, it’s a  _ little  _ intimidating, because if I screw this up then we’ll lose a really,  _ really  _ powerful ally. Like, all those times I wanted to be the leader before?  _ Nope. _ If this is the pressure that  _ you  _ feel all the time . . . I change my mind.” 

Keith lets out a puff of air that might’ve become a chuckle if he’d put a little more energy into it. “You’d be a great leader,” he says fondly, and he hopes Lance can hear how much he means it, because he  _ does.  _ In a lot of ways, it does feel like Lance is their leader. He’s their  _ rock, _ and maybe that’s the harder thing to be, anyway. For every one of Keith’s screw-ups, Lance has been the one who stayed levelheaded and helped him come up with a solution. That . . . couldn’t have been easy. 

“Mmm,” Lance hums again, after a pondering moment. “Nah. You want to know something, Keith?” 

Curiosity peaked, Keith tilts his head. “What?” 

“I’m kind of terrified of Queen Yeia.” There are traces of amusement in Lance’s voice. The small smile on Keith’s face bleeds out instantly. 

“You don’t— _ have _ to do this, you know,” he says, fixing his eyes on the deep pink fire in front of them. “If you’re uncomfortable. You know that . . . that I, or any of the others—we’d never make you do something if you didn’t want to, right? No matter what.” 

“Of course I know that,” Lance replies immediately. He doesn’t even have to think about it. He still sounds as if they’re having a humorous, lighthearted conversation; Keith supposes that to him, they  _ are.  _ “Honestly, it sounds like you’re more put-off by it than I am. Are you jealous, Keith? It would be kind of adorable if you were, but you’ve gotta know you’re the only one for me, buttercup.” 

Keith closes his eyes and is indescribably glad that Lance can’t see his face right now. “It would be pretty ridiculous of me to be jealous of a thirteen-year-old girl,” he says. 

“Yeah, it would,” Lance agrees. He accompanies this with a soft squeeze to Keith’s torso. “Anyway, it’s just a celebrity crush. I don’t mind being that. You know how many celebrity crushes I had at thirteen?” 

Considering it’s Lance . . . “More than you can name?” he guesses. 

Lance scoffs. “Oh,  _ please,  _ Keith. I can name every single one of them.” 

Keith bites back a smile, now. He’s almost dizzied by the switch from lighthearted to serious and back again. “Name one.” 

“Taylor Swift.” 

In hindsight, Keith probably should have seen that one coming. “Of course,” he says. He shifts in Lance’s arms so that he can lean back and tuck his face against his neck; he’s pretty sure his face is freezing, but Lance doesn’t complain. “I don’t have a lot in common with Taylor Swift,” he notes offhandedly. 

Lance snorts at the comment. “What? No, you  _ definitely  _ do.” He starts listing, as he adjusts his arms to hold Keith more comfortably: “You’re both breathtakingly beautiful and talented. You’re both perfect at everything you do, and it’s  _ infuriating— _ but it’s also impossible not to love you for it. And uh, not to sound self-deprecating, but you’re both way out of my league.” 

Keith goes along with it until that last part. He frowns, pulling away to cut him a disapproving look.  _ “That  _ isn’t true. Or fair to you.” 

“Keith,” Lance whines, “I said  _ ‘not to sound self-deprecating.’  _ It was a  _ joke.”  _

“You still shouldn’t talk about yourself like that,” Keith says. The fire before them turns Lance’s irises into a flickering rainbow of blue, rose, violet, and he’s  _ so beautiful, _ and he wishes Lance could see himself exactly like this. He presses a chaste, slightly-chapped kiss to Lance’s mouth, and feels the way his lips curl up into a small smile. “You’re perfect,” he tells him, and Lance’s smile grows even as it turns a little more flustered, as he chuckles nervously and says, “You’d better be careful. Don’t want to overinflate my ego.” 

Keith rolls his eyes. They settle back into how they were before; he shifts to face the fire again, Lance rests his chin on Keith’s shoulder and occasionally presses his cold nose against his jaw to leech warmth from him. A few more minutes pass in silence, and Keith thinks they should probably go to bed soon. Lance has to be up early in the morning, after all, for rehearsal with Queen Yeia. He was supposed to be helping him run lines . . . he muses on that, casts an amused glance at Lance’s holopad, now abandoned a few feet away from them. 

“Did you ever have any?” Lance asks suddenly. Keith doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

“Any what?” 

“Celebrity crushes. An actor? Or a boyband member, maybe?” 

“Oh.” Keith is quiet for a long moment as the mood once again dips into a gray area. A silent crackle of discomfort runs through his chest, and the pink fire emanates a series of loud pops. Lance is quiet, too, waiting for an answer, and finally Keith gives him one. “Not really. I never really . . . I mean, I didn’t really think about that kind of thing. About people. Like that.” 

What he doesn’t say—what he  _ won’t  _ say, ever—is that he never had the time. While other people his age were figuring out who they were and what they wanted in life, Keith didn’t really have that option as a teenager. His mind was always occupied with worrying about—other things. And later, if there had been something more about himself to learn, he either hadn’t cared enough to wonder, or he just hadn’t wanted to know. 

He . . . doesn’t really know how to explain Lance, amidst that tangle of confusion and muddled feelings. He isn’t sure if he’s ever given much thought to it before. The only things he’s certain of are that the way he feels about Lance is a way he’s never felt about anyone else, and that he’s never going to feel like this about anyone else after him. 

“. . . oh.” Lance’s voice is peculiarly hushed in his ear, deep like he’s just realized something. “Well then—then I must be pretty special, huh?” 

“Yeah.” Keith’s throat is thick with emotion. When he closes his eyes, pink fire dances across his eyelids. “You are.” 

They don’t say anything else, after that. But they stay by the fire for a long time; Keith leans back into Lance’s chest and listens to him breathe, and his face is cold where Lance’s nose presses against it, but he feels warm. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith doesn’t know when it happened. It must have been a gradual thing, he thinks; a slow process over the last three years of listening to Lance ramble at dinner and screech in space malls and complain about the state of his  _ “poor, suffering pores”  _ on unbearably arid planets. But one day it occurs to Keith that he’s subconsciously memorized every single thing about Lance’s skincare rituals. 

He knows the name and function of each product that lines the counters and shelves of Lance’s bathroom. He knows which specific days he uses specific ones, which ones are his absolute favorites, and which ones went under the counter because they felt foul or gave him a weird alien rash. He knows which ones fizz and which ones foam and which one smells like a strawberry-banana milkshake with a distinct undertone of mulch. And he knows that the reason why Lance first immersed himself into the practices of good skincare in seventh grade was because a girl named Mariana Rubio made fun of him for a bad case of acne in front of their entire class. 

Lance has obviously come a long way (figuratively and literally) from the insecure middle schooler who poured bubbling medicinal liquids into his hands with the sole intention to  _ erase, erase, erase.  _ He’s grown to love the routine of it, to love the way it makes him feel, to love the way it provides the same comfort as something he used to do back home. And there’s nothing wrong with that; Keith is glad that Lance has something he can turn to that isn’t in some way harmful to his physical or mental well-being. (Keith is glad that Lance isn’t like him.) 

But sometimes, he’ll catch Lance squinting at his reflection, or frowning as he fixates on something he sees as an imperfection that Keith can’t see  _ at all,  _ and he’ll think about all of those products in Lance’s bathroom and why he started using them. And he knows, without Lance having to say anything, exactly what he’s thinking. 

These are the moments when he wishes he could go back in time and give Mariana Rubio and every other person who contributed to Lance’s insecurities a piece of his mind. 

Tonight, backstage a half-varga before Lance is meant to perform in his solo episode of  _ The Voltron Show,  _ is one of those moments.

Lance sits in front of a mirror that looks like an uncanny crossover between a popstar’s vanity back on Earth and the Evil Queen’s magic mirror in  _ Snow White,  _ carefully inspecting the work of the makeup team Queen Yeia had assigned to him with a critical frown. The frown, Keith thinks, doesn’t go at all with the glittery gloss on his lips, or the intricate lines around his eyes: silvery tree branches extending, almost-microscopic green and yellow leaves falling to the subtle glow of his cheekbones. He looks like a fairytale prince come to life, as fae-like and ethereal as the Yuu’conians. He is undoubtedly more beautiful than any single other thing in any universe. 

Keith steps up to stand at his shoulder, wanting to  _ touch  _ but not wanting to ruin what he’s sure is hours’ worth of work. “You look great,” he says, and it’s not quite what he wants to say—he wants to tell Lance all of the things he’s thinking, wants to tell him how his heart is speeding and his stomach is fluttering and his brain is a mess but in that a strange,  _ good _ way it always gets around him—but none of the words seem like  _ enough.  _ It is, somehow, enough to bring a smile to Lance’s face, sincere and breathtaking and bright; Keith looks at him like this and wonders:  _ how could he ever doubt himself, when he can do  _ this  _ without even trying?  _

“Are you nervous?” Keith gives into the urge to at  _ least  _ touch Lance’s shoulder, feels the strange material of alien fabric, knowing even in its foreignness that it must be incredibly expensive. Or maybe it isn’t, and it just seems like it because Lance is the one wearing it. 

“Nah,” Lance says with a cocky tilt of his jaw and a grin, flippant in a way that could be believable. Keith waits. 

He deflates. “Okay,  _ fine, yes,”  _ he grudgingly admits. The single crack in the facade is enough to allow everything else to begin pouring through. “Keith, I’ve never had a whole performance dedicated to me before! And I haven’t taken aerial silk classes since before the Garrison. What if I fall and die? Or worse, what if I fall and make a  _ complete and utter embarrassment  _ of myself and Voltron? If that happens, Queen Yeia will hate me and won’t join the coalition, and it’ll be  _ my fault—”  _

“Hey.” Keith doesn’t normally cut Lance off, but he does now, frowning. “Okay, first of all—you’re never going to be an embarrassment to us. And you could probably go onstage and read your grocery list and Queen Yeia would call it poetry, so I don’t think you have much to worry about, there.” 

Lance inhales deeply and squeezes Keith’s hand as he thinks it over, and then he nods. “What about the falling and dying part?” 

“Well, I can’t make any promises about that. Be extra careful, I guess.” 

Lance glares at him, but it lacks any form of real malice, and after a moment he drops it in favor of smiling again—soft, a little bit vulnerable. “You’ll be watching, right?” 

“Of course I will be,” Keith promises. And he thinks again about how much he wants to kiss him, but instead he smiles back, squeezes Lance’s hand one last time, and lets go. 

Queen Yeia has generously gifted the rest of Team Voltron with front row seats to the one and only live showing of  _ The Voltron Show: Loverboy Lance Against the Bamboozling Bandits.  _ (Keith has to admit, it’s not the worst alliteration he’s ever heard, even if Lance laughed for fifteen minutes straight after reading it the first time.) Keith slides into his seat between Pidge and Hunk right as the lights are beginning to dim, and the former looks up at him with a grin oozing unadulterated glee. “This is going to be  _ so good,”  _ she declares, and Keith agrees with her. Maybe not for the same reasons—for Pidge, this is almost definitely about the comedy—but nonetheless, she’s right. 

Lance is phenomenal. 

He descends from the rafters in a series of complicated spins and flips: in a room filled almost entirely with winged spectators, Keith finds himself thinking there must be some metaphor in how  _ he  _ is the one who really flies. He’s breathtaking, and as Keith watches the opening scene he feels a bit bad about how much they both made fun of it last night, because poor writing or not, Queen Yeia clearly had a vision. 

Admittedly, Queen Yeia’s script-writing  _ is  _ terrible. She’s an important political leader and very, very powerful, but when it comes down to it, her plot is in its bones a self-insert fanfiction. The storyline itself is a little bit muddled and the dialogue is downright terrible in places; it’s by some pure  _ magic  _ to rival Allura’s that Lance is able to pull it off. The storyline makes little sense, but by the stars, does Lance look amazing acting it out. The dialogue is cheesy, but Lance delivers it with the sort of overemphasized drama to make it seem artfully intentional, and there are places where Keith has to cover his mouth with a hand to hide the stupidly infatuated, engrossed grin on his face. 

Near the end, as Lance is stage-battling a group of bandits on a pirate ship, Hunk leans into Keith’s space and murmurs, “It’s a shame that the Garrison didn’t have a theater program so he could double-major. You know, if he hadn’t gotten in, acting was his next big dream?” 

Keith  _ didn’t  _ know that. He glances at the yellow paladin, unable to conceal his smile as he asks, “Seriously?” 

“Oh, yeah.” Hunk nods emphatically, pauses to shove a handful of some Yuu’conian treat similar to popcorn in his mouth. He offers the bucket to Keith, who shakes his head. “He would’ve been great, right? He can dance, he can sing, obviously he can act. A definite triple threat.” 

Keith hadn’t known about the singing thing either. He files it away for later. Now, he just turns his attention back to the stage and says, “He’s amazing,”—oblivious to the way Hunk raises a curious eyebrow in response. Lance’s hair is waving like tendrils of beautiful seaweed thanks to the off-stage fans, and Queen Yeia has completely forgotten that she’s supposed to be acting in this play, too. She’s just openly watching from the top of the set where she’s “trapped” as Lance performs a spinning hook kick on one of the pirates and knocks him off the ship. 

“Are you alright, Your Highness?” Lance says, once all of the villains have been defeated. He’s on the highest deck of the ship, now, having just rescued her from the worst of the baddies; they’re right at the very end of the last scene. Naturally, this is where the first and last glitch in the act occurs. Queen Yeia blinks owlishly up at him, obviously starstruck at being this close to him (even though they’d rehearsed this all afternoon; honestly, Keith  _ gets it), _ and even from down in the audience Keith can see the way Lance has to bite back a smile as he repeats the line.  _ “Are you alright, Your Highness?”  _

“Oh!” she says, jolted: it’s a swift and miraculous recovery. “Yes, I am—all thanks to you, Loverboy Lance. You are  _ truly _ the bravest, funniest, and most handsome hero in the universe.” And then she lifts herself up onto her tiptoes, and Lance  _ still  _ has to lean down for her to plant a kiss on his cheek because of how tiny she is. Hunk covers his mouth so that he won’t laugh out loud, Pidge cackles in Keith’s ear, and he himself bites his lip on his own smile. It’s probably, definitely one of the most endearing things Keith has seen in a while. Watching this recalls to mind some of the stories Lance has told him about babysitting his niece and nephew (how he used to play pretend with them, letting them control the narration even if it meant they buried him completely in sand and then had to get his sister to help dig him back out), and that’s  _ exactly _ how he imagines this is—except with a much larger prop budget and a crowd of adoring fans to clap and cheer when the curtain falls. 

All in all,  _ Loverboy Lance _ is a hit. Audience members are raving about him in loud, exuberant voices as Keith and his friends slide out of their seats to go in search of the star himself. Backstage is complete chaos: they have to battle their way through crew members and other actors, fans who have somehow managed to sneak their way back here, and royal personnel for Queen Yeia’s protection. They find Lance at the center of a small crowd, high-fiving the guy he’d pretended to kick off the stage a mere five minutes before. He looks so  _ alive:  _ the glitter from his face is even brighter than before, if that’s possible. His smile stretches across his entire face—when his eyes find his team making their way towards him, it lights up to the brilliance of a thousand suns. “Hey!” he exclaims as Pidge rushes at him, catching her as she tackles him into a hug. “Guess who my new favorite actor is?” she says, and he throws his head back and  _ laughs.  _

Gleeful and exhilarated as he accepts hugs from them all one by one, Keith waits his turn and takes a particular interest in the bright, flushed pink on Lance’s cheeks. It has nothing to do with the makeup, he knows, and that makes the color it’s own hue of beautiful. Keith suddenly wishes that he had a bouquet of flowers in that exact shade to give to him, but he doesn’t, so when Lance has hugged everyone else and finally turns to him, Keith abandons all of his inhibitions over sounding dumb or not good enough and steps fully into his space, is _finally_ able to brush a thumb over one of his glitter-dusted cheekbones, and tells him: “You look really, _really_ pretty.” 

If it’s possible for Lance to turn any pinker, that’s what he does. His responding smile is equal parts bashful and blinding, and then it doesn’t matter that it’s almost painful to look at him because Lance pulls him in those last few millimeters and kisses him right there: filled with every ounce of his energy, tasting of sweat and laughter and the chemical berry flavor of his lipgloss. For a moment, it’s so intoxicating that Keith is rendered unable to remember that anything else outside of it exists. 

Someone clears their throat, and it breaks them both back into reality. 

Unpleasantly, they’re met with the bewildered and shocked faces of all their teammates; it’s only then that it hits Keith that in everything that’s happened between him and Lance lately, they’d neglected to say anything about it to the others.  _ That’s  _ going to be a conversation later, but dread only has a moment to filter into his bones before he realizes that they have a more immediate concern. Namely, the frankly frightening sight of Queen Yeia standing in front of them when she hadn’t been there before: still in her performance pirate-princess outfit, arms crossed over her chest and wings lifted in what appears to be visible vexation. Keith feels Lance stiffen against him and realizes, at once, how  _ badly _ this could go if Queen Yeia is actually pissed. 

After a long moment of staring that feels entirely silent, despite the swarm of production workers still buzzing and weaving around their small bubble, the young queen releases a long, melodramatic sigh.  _ “Of course  _ you’re taken,” she says to Lance, lamenting with the tragic acceptance that can only be truly felt by a teenager. “You are so completely, otherworldly beautiful, and I suppose that your partner  _ is _ the second most beautiful of you all. It is only natural that two such people would only be able to find love in each other, when you have surrounded yourself with the commoners you call teammates. You will, however, still dance with me at my birthday party tomorrow, won’t you, Paladin Lance?” 

“Um.” Lance blinks, like he’s slowly recovering from coming to the brink of a heart attack, and flicks his blue eyes to Keith’s as if to ask him:  _ is this conversation happening, or did I  _ actually  _ pass out?  _ Keith, unfortunately, isn’t sure himself, and so Lance is left to improvise. Piecing together another convincing smile, he turns back to Queen Yeia and promises, “Of course. As many dances as you want, Your Majesty.” 

“Very well then,” the queen says. She smiles brightly at him, nods once to Keith in acknowledgment, and then turns and flounces off. They all watch her go, collectively baffled, until finally she disappears from view and they turn to stare at each other instead. 

Long, unsure silence. Everyone blinks, a couple open their mouths and then shut them before anything can be vocalized. Until finally, Pidge breaks it, her brow furrowing in quiet outrage. 

“That  _ child _ just called me a commoner.” 

  
  


_____

  
  


Queen Yeia’s birthday is an all-night (or, day, Keith supposes; the Yuu’conians are a nocturnal race) affair. True to his word, Lance dances with her every single time she approaches him; Keith watches them for a while, smiling at how much fun his boyfriend is obviously having, and enjoys getting to sit back and for once attend a party that doesn’t involve  _ him  _ having to put on any sort of front for an alliance deal. 

But eventually, the dull headache that starts out easy to ignore works its way up into the necessity for absolute silence and darkness. That, on top of the fact that he’s been evading the prying questions of his teammates and outright avoiding Shiro, whose eyes Keith can feel on him like lasers even though he’s the only one who hasn’t said something to him about what transpired the previous night. Keith refills his water glass and sets off in search of a nice, quiet room far away from other people; he finds himself instead on a covered balcony overlooking the pavilion below, where all of the festivities are happening. He’s three floors up, but if he squints, he can still make out the forms of his friends as they dance and eat and talk in the vibrant torchlight. 

It is, at least, quieter here. Keith closes his eyes and lifts his free hand to apply pressure between his eyebrows, massaging the area with his thumb and index finger. He wishes that he’d had the foresight to snatch the bottle of Advil from his bag on his way up here, but as always, hindsight is twenty-twenty for him. 

High above, the three Yuu’conian moons hang like a trilogy of overlaid pendants against a backdrop of green velvet. Their combined glow is so bright that none of the stars in their immediate vicinity are visible to the naked eye, and they cast a white sheen over the world below like a fine, ethereal mist. 

It is truly one of the most beautiful planets Voltron has been to in quite a long time. So many of the people here are so artlessly  _ joyful,  _ and that is truly something rare to see, in this universe that is continually ravaged by pain and destruction and fear.

_These people have suffered,_ he thinks as he looks down at them, watching as they swirl and spin and laugh in delight, their happiness carrying on the wind, on the mist. _They’ve been hurt in unimaginable ways, and yet they’ve still found peace and new life._ And he wonders how that is, how so many people could move on from something that affected them so _massively._ Queen Yeia is probably the most perplexing example of all: she’d lost _everything,_ been forced into a title too heavy for a child’s shoulders to have to carry, and yet this is the kind of kingdom she has decided to rule. Keith has seen many rulers far older than her succumb to darkness and all-consuming sorrows over less. 

“Are you unwell?” a voice suddenly pulls him out of his thoughts, and he jumps; his elbow slams into the stone railing hard enough to send a vibrating pang down the bones of his forearm. He bites back his hiss of pain and turns to find Queen Yeia herself standing beneath the arched doorway. She’s limned in the lights coming from inside, so all of her features are disguised by shadow, but the tips of her unmistakeable wings catch and reflect the silvery moonlight. 

“No, Your Majesty,” Keith replies, and hopes for what has to be the hundredth time that he hasn’t insulted this girl in some way by bailing out on her party. “The crowd just became a little too much for me, is all.” 

The queen hums; not approving or disapproving, just noise. She approaches until she’s standing at his elbow, then leans both of her own against the banister. Her silvery hair flashes as she tilts her head, eyes gleaming as green as the sky above when she curiously notes, “You are telling the truth, yet also a lie. I suspect you are very skilled at this.” 

“I . . .” Keith is caught off-guard, unsure of how to respond. It feels a bit like an accusation, but the truth is, the way she says it sounds like an  _ assessment.  _ Like someone just has to look at him for a little bit, and they can puzzle everything out. “Well, aren’t most people?” he finally settles, and maybe it’s the right response, and maybe it isn’t, but it’s better than floundering. 

Queen Yeia smiles.  _ The right answer, then? _ Keith wonders, but then he notices how melancholic the pull on her face is. She looks up into the sky, closing her eyes as the moonlight soaks into her dark, ridged skin. 

“Years ago,” she starts abruptly, the words hushed as if she’s divulging something secret, or sacred, “my young brother—may he rest in contentment and peace forever—took a liking to a certain kind of dessert. It is a very difficult treat to make, but he was determined to learn, despite his lack of baking experience or prowess. He enlisted the help of the lead royal baker to help him learn, and soon thereafter, I began to notice burn marks on my brother’s hands and arms. When I would ask him about them, he would say: ‘I got them while I was baking.’ And I never probed him further.” Queen Yeia directs her gaze down to her hands: thin, short fingers clutching at the stone, her smile still present, but becoming more pained by the moment. Keith’s heart speeds up in unconscious dread. 

She goes on: “Later, however, someone from the kitchens came to me directly about the truth of the situation. This baker was the most skilled in our land, but he was also prone to severe violent outbursts, and when my brother would make even the slightest mistake, he would repeatedly drag his hands to the burning stove as punishment. But my brother wanted to learn  _ so _ badly that he would not tell anyone, because he knew that if he did, our parents would not allow him to continue with the lessons. So he lied to me with a half-truth, and in the end, he was the one who suffered most for it.” 

Keith dreads the answer, but he can’t stop himself from asking, expecting the worst—“What happened to him?” 

So he’s almost taken aback by the queen’s answer, a simple shrug and nonchalance, jarring given the tone of the conversation up to now. “After I was informed, I went to my parents and immediately had the baker punished for daring to lay a hand on my brother. Then we hired a new one, and my brother learned how to make the  _ Tui’shalaia.  _ He became quite proficient. He was so proud.” Her smile brightens again at that, obvious sisterly pride shining through, but Keith feels sick to his stomach. 

He recalls the negotiation dinner, only two nights ago; Queen Yeia speaking about a younger brother being killed in front of her. He wonders if that boy was the same one. He doesn’t dare to ask. 

“I don’t mean to sound disrespectful,” he begins instead, gaze shifting from her to the sky again. “But why are you telling me this?” 

“You’re lying,” she says bluntly. Keith’s heart, at once, freezes completely over. His blood begins to crystallize, freezing over the rivers in his veins. “Not necessarily intentionally, but you are. To everyone: me, your teammates. Paladin Lance.  _ Yourself. _ And I don’t know what it is exactly that you are hiding, but I . . . you could say I am  _ gifted,  _ I suppose. I can sense things. I sense that you have a very similar energy around you to the kind my brother had during that painful time in his life. Considering how I have just chosen to ally myself with your cause, you can’t fault me for being concerned. How can I know I made the right decision to entrust my entire planet to you, when I cannot be sure that I can even trust you with your own life?” 

Keith doesn’t know what he could possibly say to that. His mind is racing ahead, leaping to worst-case scenarios: _what if she backs out of the deal? What if she backs out, and tells the others why? What if they start wondering_ why? “Are you—have you changed your mind? About Voltron?” he fumbles, prays that she doesn’t see how unnerved he is. It’s impossible to read the expression on her face. 

But before his heart can run away from him completely, Queen Yeia shakes her head. “No,” she tells him, “I believe in Voltron, and in your cause. And while I may not know much of the Galra Empire personally, I trust your descriptions of their terror. If there is even a slight chance Zarkon will come here, I do not want my people to be taken by surprise. My side of the agreement holds firm. You have upheld your end of the alliance terms, after all.” 

“Oh.” Keith releases his held breath, but the relief gives way onto confusion. “So then . . . why this? Why tell me this?” 

Queen Yeia hums, quiet for a moment as she thinks about it. “I suppose I just saw someone who reminds me of someone I once loved, and thought I might share some guidance. Perhaps it will help you; perhaps it will mean nothing. And I hope you know that my intentions aren’t to disrespect or demean the strength you must have to carry your team in the way that you do. I simply do not enjoy watching people suffer. I don’t want you to suffer, Paladin Keith.” 

Again, Keith doesn’t know what to say. Thankfully, this time, she doesn’t expect a response. Instead she gazes down onto the pavilion, and a delighted smile curves its way up her mouth as her attention catches on something below them. “Well. Now that we’ve had our chat, I do believe I’m going to go dance with your beautiful Lance again. He is quite lovely, do you know?” 

In spite of all the new, difficult thoughts spinning in his head, his smile is still effortless at the mention of Lance. “Yeah, I know.” 

She nods, like of all the questions she’s asked him, this one holds the most weighted answer. Then she turns to him, eyes flashing and smile genuine, regardless of the nature of their conversation. He can’t help but think, in spite of her unearthly dissimilarities, that when she smiles, she looks a little bit like Lance. 

“I am glad we’ve met,” she tells him. “Best wishes to you and your team, Paladin Keith. I hope that whatever is plaguing you will be resolved soon.” 

She hops up onto the balcony ledge, stretches out her long wings behind her, and jumps into the misty air. He watches her swirl in sweeping, leisurely loops all the way to the ground. Then she’s lost to the sea of dancers, and Keith turns his attention back to the sky: everything feels ethereally muted, here, but he finds that even as the night slips away, it’s impossible to erase the words of the thirteen-year-old queen from his mind. 

_ You’re lying,  _ they repeat, over and over.  _ You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying. . . .  _

  
  


_____

  
  


Truthfully, Keith and Lance hadn’t made a conscious decision  _ not  _ to tell their teammates about the shift in their relationship status. It was never supposed to be a secret. It’s not like they were  _ lying  _ to anybody. 

So why,  _ why  _ does Keith feel so guilty beneath the weight of their stares? 

“It’s not really a big thing,” Lance tells everyone at dinner on the night that they return home from Yuu’conia. No one seems to be particularly mad; just confused, or still a little bit surprised. In Shiro’s case, there are still quiet traces of alarm in the tension of his jaw, and Keith knows exactly why. He doesn’t  _ need  _ Shiro to tell him why. “It just . . . kind of happened, you know? Like, there’s a lot going on right now, but  _ this  _ isn’t something anyone needs to worry about, because it’s—it’s  _ good.  _ Keith and I are in love, and nothing else has changed. Right?” Lance directs this small smile at Keith, squeezes his hand where they’re linked under the table. There’s something turbulent churning in the pit of Keith’s stomach, but he manages to smile back, and tries to ignore the guilt. “Right,” he echoes, and that’s all. No one makes a big deal over it. Nothing else changes. 

Except, something  _ does.  _ Keith can’t explain what it is, or why, but suddenly something is different. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with any of the others. He thinks it’s just—as it always is—him, making things more complicated than they’re supposed to be. 

Keith has only been in one other public relationship before, and  _ that  _ wasn’t exactly a model he ever wants to follow again. This, with Lance, is different, and he  _ knows  _ this is different, and that—that  _ is  _ a good thing. But looking at how different things  _ really  _ are, staring it right in the face like this, makes Keith realize that he has  _ no  _ idea what he’s doing, or if the things they’re doing are actually right, or if he would even be able to tell if something  _ was  _ wrong. 

(Something _is_ wrong. It’s him. Everything about him is wrong, he’s just waiting for someone to _say it,_ and the fact that no one has yet just makes him feel even worse. What’s going to happen when he messes up? What’s going to happen when Lance figures out how messed up he is?) 

(And when had that happened—the glaring shift from  _ if  _ to  _ when?  _ He tells himself that he can keep it from happening, but the longer he lets this go on, the more unsure he becomes. The uncertainty, the dread of waiting for everything to fall apart, is  _ crushing.)  _

_ You’re lying,  _ the echo of Queen Yeia’s voice sings to him in the dark when he can’t sleep, and he stares up at the ceiling and tries to convince himself:  _ I’m not, I’m not.  _ He tells himself that it’s not lying as long as Lance doesn’t ask; he’s  _ allowed  _ to keep some things to himself. He doesn’t have to tell Lance the entire history of his life if he doesn’t want to; he  _ doesn’t  _ want to, and until now, he’s been able to convince himself that that’s  _ fine.  _ He thinks that in normal relationships, it’s  _ healthy  _ to be able to keep some things to yourself. It’s not secrecy, it’s just privacy—isn’t he supposed to be entitled to that much? 

But lately, he’s started mentally cataloging all of the things about  _ Lance’s  _ past that he knows, and the list is extensive and  _ vibrantly  _ detailed. And he thinks about how little he’s given back in return—how in a lot of ways, he must still seem like a  _ stranger _ to Lance—and  _ that  _ doesn’t seem fair. The guilt becomes so encompassing that it feels like needles prickling along the insides of his lungs, and he doesn’t know how to make it go away. He tells himself that he’ll learn to live with it, but he isn’t sure how much more of this he can take. 

The thoughts keep him awake; he tosses and he turns. He gets to his feet and paces the length of his room, trying to mentally tire himself out without the training deck—for once, it works. But then he climbs back into bed and closes his eyes, and he falls directly into a dream. 

_ Lance is standing at the center of a realm of stars. He’s encapsulated by them and emanating their shining light all at once, and though the stars are beautiful, he is unmistakably the only one worth staring at. And Keith does stare: he steps into the warmth of his brightness with searching eyes, wanting to memorize every part of him, his heart pounding with the  _ desire  _ of it. Lance slides their palms together and everything stills, a comforting weight to ground him, to keep him from floating away into the dark matter of space. Lance looks right into him and whispers:  _ “What are you afraid of?” 

_ “Nothing,” Keith says, but the word doesn’t feel right in his mouth, so he frowns and tries again. “Everything. I don’t know.”  _

_ “Me?” Lance asks. He bracelets Keith’s wrists with his fingers, gently tugging until the palms of Keith’s hands come to rest on his shoulders. It’s then that he notices that his wrists are bare, but the sight of them like this doesn’t fill him with the usual swelling sensation of dizziness and disgust. He doesn’t feel much of anything towards them at all—they’re just there, in the same way his hands and his arms and Lance’s shoulders are there.  _

_ He shakes his head. “No. I . . . I don’t know,” he repeats. His heart is racing, and his skin is tingling with an unfamiliar heat, and he thinks that he  _ might  _ be afraid. “I don’t want to be.”  _

_ He’s hyperaware of every place on his body that Lance touches: his hands curved against Keith’s spine, his forehead pressed to Keith’s when he leans into him, Keith’s own thumbs running along the sharp planes of his collarbones. Breathing in, feeling Lance’s breath on his skin as he exhales. “You don’t have to be.”  _

_ Something in Keith’s stomach swoops at the low tone of Lance’s voice: smooth like honey, warm like melted chocolate. “Show me,” he says, and Lance smiles against his mouth, and he does.  _

Keith wakes up slowly, with a gentle sort of fire unfurling low in his abdomen and a pulse that steadily, softly thrums in his veins. And then the first flicker of awareness kicks in: his eyes fly open at once, his fingers instinctively clutch at the sheets, and his heart stills completely as he stares at the ceiling and realizes.  _ Oh.  _

Oh. 

  
  


_____

  
  


His first instinct is to shove it away. 

Keith spends the first part of the next morning doing everything in his power to forget about the dream. It’s a task that proves impossible almost immediately—he walks into breakfast and freezes the moment Lance looks up and smiles at him, skin prickling at the memory of something that never  _ happened— _ but he still  _ tries,  _ because the only alternative is to acknowledge it, and Keith doesn’t want to do that. Acknowledging it means addressing how  _ confused  _ he is; how everything is suddenly  _ different  _ and uncertain and unbalanced and how he can’t understand any of it. Truthfully, Keith doesn’t  _ know  _ what to think. 

(He knows what he  _ should  _ think. He should be sickened, and afraid, and ashamed. And he  _ is _ all of those things, in a way—but in another, undeniable way, he  _ isn’t.)  _

Keith spends the latter part of the morning panicking in Black. 

“I—I shouldn’t be this freaked out over this,” he says. He’s pacing a trench into Black’s floor, hands shaking as he scrubs them through his tangled hair. “Right? Like, this—this is a normal thing. I’m twenty-one years old, and I have a boyfriend that I love, and it’s . . . it’s  _ natural,  _ right? To have a—” The word is blocked in his throat by a burst of sudden, hysterical laughter; not for the first time in his life, he’s  _ convinced  _ that this must be the moment the last intact thread of his sanity is finally going to snap. 

“A sex dream,” he forces out when the laughter finally dies; slaps a hand over his mouth as he lets the words ring out and wonders when his life came to this. He’s talking to a sentient robot lion about problems that he  _ should  _ be keeping to himself—he didn’t even mean to come here. He doesn’t know  _ why he’s here.  _ “Fuck—you probably don’t want to listen to me whine over this, do you? Because this—it’s  _ not  _ a big deal. I mean,  _ Lance  _ has probably . . .” Keith feels all of the blood drain out of his face when the incomplete thought hits him. 

“Fuck,” he whispers.  _ “Fuck.”  _

Black does her best to try and coax him out of his rapid spiral.  _ Breathe,  _ she rumbles, and it’s only when she says it that he even realizes he stopped. He takes a deep breath, and when she’s satisfied that he’s not about to pass out, she continues.  _ Speak. I will listen.  _

Keith wonders, distantly, if maybe she somehow unconsciously brought him here. But it’s easily dismissed; she’s never done something like that before. More likely, Keith had just blanked and instinctively walked himself here. He’s been doing that a lot, lately: he goes from being in one place to another with no recollection of how he got there. He wonders if he should be more worried than he is, but he’s already dealing with so much constant fear on top of stress that he doesn’t think he could handle any more. 

“I think I messed up again,” he says, closing his eyes as the defeat sets in. Black asks him,  _ why do you think that?  _ but he doesn’t answer. He decides that he’s done talking about this. 

“It’s not a big deal,” he repeats—as if it’s a spell, the magic trick that’ll make this go away. “I have bigger things to worry about, anyway.  _ The Voltron Show  _ is already kicking my ass; I don’t have  _ time  _ for anything else right now. If Lance wants to have sex, then I’ll figure it out when it comes up, but there’s no point in worrying about it until then.” 

Black makes an uneasy noise in his mind.  _ I am not sure this is the best solution. You are already stretched so thin. Hiding things from him is hurting you.  _

“It doesn’t matter,” Keith whispers. “It would hurt more to tell him things that he doesn’t need to know.” 

He can sense that Black doesn’t know what to say to that; he’s glad that she says nothing. Some things are better left to the silence. 

  
  


_____

  
  


He puts the dream away and throws himself completely into work. There are team meetings in the mornings and alliance reports in the afternoons; there’s training in between and lines to run before the shows that have become a temporary fixture of their schedules, with no definite end in sight. Keith scrolls through his holofeed during meals so he won’t accidentally make eye contact with his brother, who he’s done his best to avoid entirely since Yuu’conia. And when they’re planetside, he retreats into some deep place within him and becomes someone else: the closest he can get to perfect—that image of the Voltron leader that the universe is rapidly growing to believe in.

No one aside from Shiro ever finds him trying to catch his breath in shadowy alcoves or lonely hallways when the shows end; no one will ever know about the horrific, endless loop of screams that repeats inside his mind, and some nights, this is the only thought that comforts him. 

(Some nights, it’s the thought that almost drives him over the edge.) 

But some nights, Keith will emerge from the shadows to immediately fix on the sight of Lance on a dancefloor, and images of the same Lance dressed in starlight flash in his mind like facets of a kaleidoscope.  _ I want him,  _ he thinks, and the war between fear and longing rises to a crescendo in his head. One of these days, it’s going to rip his mind apart, but he doesn’t want to think about that either, so he blocks it out. 

It’s on one of these nights that Lance saunters over to him, flushed and grinning, his lips shining in the same gloss he’d worn during the show on Yuu’conia. (He’d made a single offhand comment to Queen Yeia about being into makeup, and she’d responded by gifting him with all of the cosmetics of his choice. Naturally, he’s been cycling through every single lipgloss shade since then; Keith has absolutely zero complaints about this.) There are little sparkles in the lipgloss formula, and Keith can’t help but fixate on them for a long moment. “Come dance with me,” Lance says, humor in his voice, and when Keith drags his gaze up to meet his, he knows that Lance knows  _ exactly  _ where his attention was. 

For a moment, Keith thinks about agreeing. He rarely ever dances unless it’s to make nice with diplomats, but the only person he ever has fun dancing with is Lance. And he knows that Lance wants to, obviously—Lance almost always asks him to dance at these events; it’s on rarer occasions that Keith says yes—but after a moment’s hesitation, he shakes his head. 

“Actually, I . . . was thinking about heading up to our rooms. I’m kind of tired,” he admits. But Lance’s smile doesn’t slip; instead, he nods easily in understanding. “Let me walk you up, then,” he says, and Keith lets him. 

“Man, these people know how to  _ party,”  _ Lance comments on the elevator ride up, and now his smile does falter a little, as he shifts his weight and winces. “I think my feet are blistering, now that I’m paying attention to their silent cries. Maybe I’ll call it an early night, too.” 

Keith hums, leaning away from Lance’s side as the doors open so that they can step out. “You should. We can watch an episode of . . . what’s it called, again?” 

_ “The Forbidden Magic of Love.  _ Yes. Let’s do that.” Lance grins at him, and again, Keith can’t help but stare at the reflective shimmer of his lipgloss. He wants to kiss him  _ so  _ badly; he’s almost dizzy when he remembers that he  _ can. _ And he does: the moment that Lance opens his door, spinning to walk backward as he tugs Keith inside, he follows him all the way until their noses bump gently, tilts his head until it’s just right. Lance makes a pleasantly surprised noise when their lips connect, and then he reaches around Keith to nudge the door closed without breaking the contact. “Or we could do this,” he murmurs, but Keith doesn’t remember what he’s talking about, or what they were going to do before.  _ Now _ is the only realm that exists, and the distinct berry flavor reminiscent of some kind of candy back on Earth that he can’t quite put his finger on. He pulls away, just enough to be able to see as he brushes his thumb along the bottom of Lance’s lip, where some of the lipgloss has smeared, and muses, “I really like this.” 

“I know.” Lance’s smile is even more dazzling up close. Keith’s breath hitches. “You’re kind of super obvious, Keith,” he tells him, a trace of amusement in his tone. 

“Shut up—you’re pretty,” Keith grouses, sourcing an exuberant laugh from Lance’s mouth as he leans in to kiss him again. And while Keith is the one who initiates it, Lance is the one who walks them backwards, one hand steady on the small of Keith’s back while the other fumbles behind them until it catches on the bedpost. He drags Keith with him as he sits at the edge of the bed, so that he’s bracketed on either side by Lance’s legs as his arms attach themselves snugly around his waist. It puts Keith’s neck at a somewhat awkward angle, but he doesn’t complain: he’s intoxicatingly warm on all sides, dazed by the pleasant pressure and the pulse point at Lance’s neck, thrumming like a live wire beneath his fingertips. Lance sighs and Keith feels the sound like something swooping in his stomach: plummeting and rising again like they’re on a rollercoaster. It’s an addictive rush of adrenaline, and he kind of wishes Lance would do it again. 

Too soon, though, he pulls away; before Keith can become too crestfallen, Lance says, “Hang on a second. I can’t focus with this stupid Altean shirt cutting off my circulation.” Keith steps away so that he won’t get elbowed as Lance begins pulling at the elaborate network of sashes holding the fabric together. He’s always been of the opinion that Altean formalwear is unnecessarily,  _ ridiculously _ complicated, and that opinion does not change as he watches Lance undo the hooked swath of fabric that wraps around his ribs. Once it’s gone, the rest of the shirt falls away, and suddenly Keith’s mouth goes dry. 

It’s not that he’s never seen Lance shirtless before. He has, probably more times than he can think of, for reasons that stretch from going swimming in the castle to accidentally walking in on him changing to that one time they had to strip Lance down and toss him into a vat of cleansing chemicals after he was temporarily paralyzed by the spray of a toxic alien skunk. That aside, Lance has never been particularly shy about people seeing his bare skin—a side effect of growing up on a beach, days spent offering his skin up for the sun to paint shades of golden bronze, maybe. So it’s not that Keith is  _ surprised,  _ or caught off guard in any way at seeing him. It’s just . . . 

Lance meets his eyes, head tilting curiously; this is _different._ This isn’t the casual awkwardness of walking in on Lance pulling on training gear, or the lack of attention given to Lance’s skin except for where it’s starting to turn alarmingly green from noxious gas. This is—intimate. 

He swallows down the sudden rush of nerves that congeal into a lump in his throat, and when Lance reaches to tug him back into his space, he goes easily, settling his hands onto his bare shoulders. His skin almost sears the palms of Keith’s hands, as if he really  _ does  _ contain the heat of a thousand suns within it.  _ He’s beautiful,  _ he thinks, and he says so. Lance answers him by kissing him again. 

And this, Keith thinks, is  _ good.  _ It’s  _ so  _ good, and it’s everything he wants, because  _ this— _ Lance’s shoulders beneath his hands, Lance’s hands on his back, his mouth, his  _ energy— _ is something  _ real.  _ Lance is real, and he’s  _ right here,  _ and suddenly Keith finds it laughable that he’s spent the past couple of weeks worrying so much when everything with Lance always feels so natural and  _ easy.  _

There’s a rush of blurry movement, and when Keith’s mind refocuses he finds himself on top of Lance, his knees braced on the bed to either of his hips. Lance’s fingertips are ten burning points against his skin where his shirt has ridden up, and he lets out this sigh that’s all hot, gusting air and no sound into Keith’s mouth and suddenly stars are sparking and swirling across his closed eyelids. He stills. 

“Keith?” Lance is dazed and gorgeously flushed, blinking wide blue eyes up at him. “Everything okay?” 

_ I don’t know,  _ he thinks. He  _ wants  _ to say yes. He wants to say that he’s okay, that he’s  _ great, _ and he wants to kiss Lance again and watch the stars spin in his vision and let things go wherever they go. Because he’s twenty-one years old and Lance is his  _ boyfriend,  _ and he loves him a  _ lot,  _ and maybe he can’t give Lance his past but he can give him  _ right now,  _ and he  _ wants  _ him, so why  _ shouldn’t he?  _

The buzz in his mind goes silent at once, replaced by a thick layer of cool tranquility.  _ Why shouldn’t he?  _

“Keith?” Lance repeats. Keith blinks, coming back to himself; he looks down at Lance for another long moment, and then makes a deliberate decision. 

“No,” he says. “Actually. You were right—it’s  _ impossible  _ to breathe in these shirts.” He pushes off of Lance’s shoulders, relying on the balance of his knees to hold him upright as he begins tugging at the fabric. Lance settles a hand onto Keith’s hip to add extra support, humming in agreement. 

“I know, right? You’d think, considering how advanced Alteans were compared to humans, that they would’ve found a way to make formalwear  _ not  _ be a pain in the ass. I used to complain about ties, but now I  _ miss  _ them, Keith. Ties. I miss  _ ties.”  _

Keith snorts, even as his fingers fumble when he tries to yank one of the sashes out of its web of loops. After a moment of watching him struggle, Lance reaches out to help him; he pulls at it once and the whole thing comes undone. “The secret is to not show any fear,” he says conspiratorially, and Keith almost laughs at how uncannily  _ fitting  _ the comment is, but it isn’t funny. 

He lowers his hands back to Lance’s shoulders; trails one down to his chest, settles over his heart. It’s fluttering rapidly, incongruent with how  _ calm  _ he looks, and Keith wonders what it means, but he doesn’t ask. He presses his lips to it once, twice, slowly makes his way up to the pulse point in his neck, and Lance hums into it, tilts his head to give Keith better access, bringing his arms up to loop around his neck. Keith’s entire body thrums with heat, and he devotes all of his attention to how  _ alive  _ Lance is, how addictive and all-consuming the feeling of him beneath his hands is.  _ I love you,  _ he thinks,  _ I love you I love you I love you I love you IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouI— _

“Keith,” Lance says. And then again, voice pitched low in alarm.  _ “Keith.  _ You’re shaking.” 

“I—what?” Keith’s breath snags roughly in his throat, and it takes a minute for his brain to catch up and realizes that  _ oh— _ he is. “I . . . it’s nothing. I’m fine,” he dismisses, curls his fingers into Lance’s shoulders so that they’ll  _ stop trembling,  _ shakes his head. He leans in to kiss him again. Lance leans away. 

All traces of his earlier smiles are gone. “Keith,” he repeats. “I think we need to talk about something.” 

Keith’s heart drops into his stomach like a stone. It pulses there, bleeding out icy dread and panic as he realizes he messed up.  _ He’s mad,  _ he thinks, and it’s not the thought of an adult, it’s the thought of a  _ child— _ his boyfriend is  _ mad  _ at him and—

“Woah,  _ woah.”  _ The world goes blurry, and Keith sucks in a startled gasp as his center of gravity shifts, fingernails dragging as he scrabbles for purchase, eyes squeezing shut. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen, so he tries to brace himself for anything, but he can feel his lungs collapsing and he can’t  _ breathe— _

“Keith, Keith, it’s  _ okay.”  _ Warm hands settle onto the sides of his face, someone’s soft voice shushing him.  _ “Cielo,  _ it’s nothing bad, I promise, okay? It’s okay.” 

There’s only one person who ever calls him things like  _ cielo;  _ Keith’s brain stumbles on the word, and he falls at once back into the present. It’s  _ Lance’s  _ voice in his ear; Lance’s hands on his face. His fingernails are digging crescent moons into Lance’s skin, and he lets go at once, horrified as he fixates on the marks he leaves behind. “I’m sorry,” he says, nausea twisting his stomach painfully. “Lance, I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Lance repeats. But his eyes are wide with worry, searching Keith’s face like it’ll tell him all of the things Keith won’t say out loud. Guilt spears through him, sharp and burning:  _ I put that there.  _

“Bad choice of words?” he guesses, and it’s Keith’s first inclination to lie to him.  _ It’s fine, no, it’s just me being stupid, I won’t let it happen again I swear.  _

Keith lets himself slump forward until his forehead bumps gently into Lance’s; his exhale is as slow and shaky as his one-worded confession. “Yeah.” 

“Okay.” Lance sounds a little shaken himself; one of his hands disappears from Keith’s face, reappears at the base of his spine. Soft heat spreads from the contact, spiderwebbing across his back. “Okay. But Keith . . . I think I know what’s going on here.” 

The panic flickers and writhes. “What?” he whispers. 

“You’re asexual, aren’t you?” 

It stills. “What,” he repeats. 

Lance takes a deep breath. “Look, it’s  _ not  _ a big deal—it’s not—but it is a conversation we need to have. And we probably should have a while ago, but I thought maybe—y’know, if you  _ are,  _ you were working yourself up to tell me, and I didn’t want to freak you out or anything by trying to rush it. But . . . but lately, I can’t help but feel like we’re on two completely different pages. You’re really into making out, and then all of a sudden you’re  _ not— _ like at a certain point you expect things to go somewhere you’re not comfortable with. And that’s  _ not  _ okay, Keith. If you’re ever uncomfortable with something we’re doing, it’s  _ not okay,  _ and I need to know about it so it doesn’t happen again.” 

Keith doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to that. He feels—frozen, stuck beneath the weight of Lance’s honesty and compassion, trapped as his lungs fill up with the unbearable reminder that he doesn’t deserve  _ any  _ of it. 

He’s a  _ liar.  _ He’s a liar and he’s guilty and Lance doesn’t know—he doesn’t  _ know.  _ He doesn’t know that Keith doesn’t deserve him, that Keith is wasting his time and how eventually he’s going to wake up and see it, and he’s going to find out that Keith is lying to him, but Keith won’t be able to explain that he never  _ wanted _ to  _ lie. _ He just doesn’t want to  _ lose him.  _

His eyes burn. He closes them so he won’t have to look at Lance’s face. “I’m not . . . I’m not asexual, Lance.” 

“But—” He can hear the confusion in his voice, knows without having to open his eyes that Lance’s eyebrows have scrunched together in the middle. “But you said . . . on Yuu’conia, you said you’d never cared about things like that before. I thought that meant . . .” 

“I meant what I said,” Keith whispers. His throat feels tight, blocked by all of his shameful secrets. It _hurts_ when he tells him: “But you’re _different.”_

Lance doesn’t say anything. Keith is afraid to open his eyes—afraid that he’ll open them and Lance will be able to  _ see;  _ afraid that he’ll have to watch someone else that he loves disappear. 

“I’ve never . . .” And he can feel his face crumpling, but he’s determined not to cry, because Lance has had to see too many of his tears recently, and he’s not going to make him deal with any more. “I’ve never  _ had  _ anyone like you before. I don’t know what I’m doing. And—and everything feels . . . it’s  _ confusing, _ and sometimes I don’t even know if you’re real or if I just made you up, and the rest of the time I keep waiting for you to leave.” 

“I’m not going to leave,” Lance whispers. He sounds so  _ sad,  _ brushing a thumb over Keith’s cheekbone and saying, “I’m right here. I’m real.” 

Keith shakes his head. His words are too much, his voice cracks when he tells him, “You can’t promise me that.” 

Again, Lance says nothing. After a moment, he lets out this quiet, tired sigh, and he gently pulls Keith forward until he can tuck his head beneath his chin, holding him in his lap and tightening his grip until there isn’t even a chance that Keith will slip away. He presses his nose to Lance’s collar and blinks dry eyes against his skin until his throat stops hurting from the press of ignored tears. 

“Hunk said something.” It’s an intentional non sequitur; he wants to stop  _ thinking,  _ and subsequently distract Lance from everything he just said— _ too much— _ and he latches onto the first thing that comes to him. Lance, who’s started tracing shapeless patterns on his back with his fingers, temporarily stills. “Said what?” 

“You can sing. I didn’t know.” 

“Oh.” The patterns start up again: over the knobs of his spine, down to his hip. “Yeah. I mean, I’m not the  _ greatest,  _ but I’m alright. My niece and nephew say so, anyway.” 

Keith would maybe scoff if he was less tired; as it is, he just breathes in deeply through his nose the scent of Lance’s skin: vaguely cinnamon-scented lotion and sweat, comfortingly familiar. “You should sing to me.” 

“Yeah?” Lance hums, tilts his head and tousles Keith’s hair. “Sing what?” 

“I don’t care. Anything.” 

“Okay.” Lance falls quiet as he thinks, calloused fingertips drawing circles on the small of his back. “Okay. I’ve got one.” 

He clears his throat, and after a heartbeat’s hesitation, the first shaky notes of his voice ring out over the silence:  _ “Our coming of age has come and gone; suddenly this summer it’s clear . . .”  _ Keith closes his eyes and lets the song wash over him; the soft, rich tones of Lance’s voice, growing in slow but sure confidence with each lyric. He tangles his fingers into Keith’s hair, and Keith can picture the look on his face—distant as he recalls the words to a well-loved song, pensive and nostalgic, but  _ here.  _ Aware of Keith in his arms, soaking up every emotional line and all the pauses in between. Lance sings like he’s someone in love. Lance sings like his heart has just been broken. 

_ “But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm; if your cascade ocean wave blues come; all these people think love’s for show, but I would die for you in secret.”  _ His voice breaks a little, here, and he pauses for a moment to breathe, breathe, breathe. Keith follows the movement, his fingertips dragging to rest over his heart’s steady, unflickering beat. 

_ “The devil’s in the details, but you got a friend in me. Would it be enough, if I could never give you peace?”  _

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith goes to sleep one night thinking of ocean eyes and a heart filled with eternal summer warmth; he dreams in hues of green and gray. When he wakes up, he’s suffocating, stumbling over his own feet into the bathroom, bracing his hands on the edge of the sink and turning on the water so there will be a sound to drown out the droning, insanity-inducing silence. 

He closes his eyes and counts to eight, brings himself down from the verge of a breakdown, and opens them again. But the sight that greets him very nearly shatters him. It’s only the reminder that his teammates are sleeping just down the hall that keeps him from screaming. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, not able to disguise the tremble in his voice. He watches the figure in the mirror take a step closer, and suddenly he can  _ feel  _ the presence of him at his back. A hand closes around Keith’s wrist and he shudders, skin crawling in a desperate attempt to get away,  _ getawaygetaway.  _

“Don’t you want to see me?” the boy in the mirror says, and condescension drips right into Keith’s ear. He closes his eyes, biting back nausea; he can feel the heat of his breath on the side of his face. 

“Open your eyes, Keith,” he snaps, and faster than lightning, Keith obeys. He immediately hates himself for it—for the fear that controls his movements like a puppet on strings, for the  _ weakness _ that made him this way, that  _ keeps  _ him this way, even so many years in the future and with endless lightyears of distance between them. He  _ hates  _ it, and he hates himself, and when he looks into the mirror again, it’s not the sight of  _ his  _ face that sickens him. It’s his own. 

The figure in front of him—behind him, all around him,  _ everywhere— _ clicks his tongue, disapproval turning down the corners of his mouth as his hand begins to creep up Keith’s arm to his shoulder. When the collar of his shirt dead-ends onto skin, sickeningly familiar fingers sweep across the juncture of his shoulder and neck, dip down to his collarbone. It’s all Keith can do to stay still, to not squirm beneath a touch that’s familiar in all of the wrong ways, to not show that he’s afraid. 

“It’s been a while,”  _ he  _ muses, watching his fingers hook beneath the collar of Keith’s shirt and pinch the fabric away from his skin. “You still look the same. Unfortunately. Do you still  _ act  _ the same?” He doesn’t pause to give Keith even the option of answering, swiftly breezing on. “I’d hope so—you wouldn’t be much fun if you actually grew a backbone. Bet the new boyfriend would hate it. Can’t have that, can you?” 

Keith can’t stop himself from flinching at that. “Don’t talk about him,” he snaps.  _ He  _ raises an eyebrow. 

“A sensitive subject, huh? Wow, he must  _ really _ have you good. Pity that he’s not going to want you anymore when the truth comes out.” Amusement flashes green, and Keith bites his tongue to keep from saying another thing that he’ll regret. Anger and despair and revulsion writhe along his skin, up and down his arms, shooting through to his heart, wrapping around his lungs. 

“What do you think he’s going to say, when he finds out that you’re tainted? When you accidentally say  _ my _ name when he touches you and he realizes that you already  _ belong  _ to someone?” 

“I don’t belong to you,” Keith snarls, but it’s weak, and he knows it, and he knows that  _ he  _ knows it.  _ He  _ isn’t even fazed; humming as his free hand finds Keith’s waist, settles scrawling, lazy fingertips to the skin above the waistband of his jeans. It’s  _ that  _ action, more than anything, that churns up a low, heavy  _ anger  _ in Keith’s stomach, because he knows what he’s doing. He’s  _ taking his time.  _ Dragging it out—because he knows Keith hates the dread of waiting for something to happen just as much as he hates any of the things he actually  _ does  _ to him. He  _ hates  _ it, he  _ hates _ this, he  _ hates— _

“Really? Because I can prove otherwise. _Easily.”_ Those fingers twitch, only a centimeter down, but it’s enough. Keith’s vision turns to violent, _burning_ scarlet. 

His fist breaks through the glass, fragmenting the planes of  _ his  _ face and shattering the green of his eyes. But it’s not enough—he’s still there in pieces, and Keith needs him  _ gone,  _ so he pulls his fist back and he does it again. And again, and  _ again;  _ he doesn’t feel the sting, even when the slivers of glass slip over his bare knuckles, sending blood seeping into the fabric of his gloves and all over his fingertips. Shards of it are all over the counter and the floor, but when he looks up from the mess that he’s created, the figure is gone. He spins around, bleeding hands catching on the counter as he scrabbles to  _ make sure— _ and there’s no one in the bathroom with him anymore.  _ There never was.  _

The cloudy anger clings to him, as he sweeps bloodied glass into a small wastebasket and tends the best he can to his now-aching fingers. It hangs like the still-remaining pieces of mirror clinging to the frame; not enough to form a clear picture, but enough to  _ remind _ him. Hatred pulses in him like the beat of his  _ mercilessly  _ undying heart, even after he shuts off the water that’s been running in the sink this whole time and slams the door behind him as he leaves. He pauses for a moment, wonders if maybe his brain will calm down now that the danger is out of sight; but then his eyes fall on the bed and he knows,  _ knows,  _ that if he sleeps again, he’ll be found in his dreams. 

_ There’s no escape.  _ What a miserable,  _ defining  _ phrase to sum up his life. Keith changes out of his bloodstained shirt into a clean one, retrieves his blade from where he keeps it beneath his pillow when he sleeps, and goes in search of the one thing he knows he can control: a clean, detached fight. 

  
  


_____

  
  


The anger does not leave him when Lance shows up to drag him off the training deck a couple hours after he logs into his first sequence; instead, as he slips into the auto-pilot mode that will carry him through the day, the ugly, coiling emotion begins to fester like an untreated open wound. He can  _ feel it  _ there, itching below his skin, in the same way he can feel the press of a phantom against his back. 

He thinks the others can feel it, too. They don’t say anything, but throughout the day, he notices that everyone is giving him a larger berth than usual—with the exception of Lance, of course, who stopped being fazed by Keith’s turbulent mood swings years ago. Lance, who hangs around in his orbit even though his silence is stonier than usual; who creates conversation out of Keith’s monosyllabic responses. Black has been trying all day to get something out of him, and eventually he gets so fed up that he blocks his mind from her completely. He hasn’t done that in weeks, and he knows he’ll feel bad about it later. But then, he’s going to feel bad about everything later—he  _ already  _ feels bad about everything, because today is a very,  _ very  _ bad day. 

The shadows keep playing tricks on him. Something flashes out of them and he jumps; he’ll think he’s caught a glimpse of honey-blond hair or the flash of a dark smile that he’s been trying to erase from his memory for  _ years,  _ but every time his vision focuses, he finds that  _ nothing  _ is there. Except for the one terrifying time when Keith forgets that Lance went to get lunch for them, and Lance doesn’t look anything like him but for a moment the shadow of him in the doorway when he returns is just similar  _ enough— _

Keith puts it out of his mind. He tries to do the same for the anger he feels towards almost everything, but it doesn’t work; it’s like a living,  _ breathing  _ thing growing in him, and he thinks that he should be terrified of it. But the thought of fear is fuel for more hatred, and more hatred is what feeds the furious flames, so it grows and it grows and it grows until that evening, when he finds himself sitting alone at a table in the corner of a long dining-turned-dance hall, and a balm for the awful mesh of feeling presents itself to him on a literal silver platter. 

They’re on a planet that he couldn’t recall the name of if his life depended on it; he thinks they did a show earlier, but he’s kind of fuzzy on that, too. Gratefully, Allura had released him from diplomatic duties tonight  _ (“Shiro, Lance, and I will handle the politics tonight; please, for the love of every star in this system, just sit down for a moment, Keith”),  _ and Keith is relieved because he can’t imagine he would make a very good ambassador right now. He can’t even imagine  _ being  _ here for another minute: he wants to go home and lock himself in his room; he wants to be able to scream without the risk of someone hearing him; he wants to be somewhere else, wants to be  _ someone  _ else, wants—he doesn’t even  _ know.  _ He can’t imagine there’s anything that could possibly make him feel better, because Lance had to leave to go dance with a duchess’s husband’s step-brother’s aunt twice removed or some shit, far on the other side of the room. 

A waiter sweeps by his table, carrying a tray of brightly-tinted liquids in champagne flutes. It’s the same guy who’s been walking this side of the hall all night, and like every other time he’s made the rounds, he pauses to offer one of his available items to Keith. And like every other time, Keith opens his mouth to dismiss him. 

But then his eyes catch on one of the glasses, shining a particular shade of blue that makes him think of ocean waves at midnight, and he hesitates. 

He isn’t stupid. People have been drinking the sparkly, fizzy beverages all night, and half of the room is drunk because of it. Pidge was sampling at least a dozen different colored ones last Keith saw her, before something caught her intoxicated attention and she went tottering after it. (She’s fine, Keith knows; Hunk is on Pidgesitting-duty tonight.) Keith himself normally doesn’t drink alcohol at these sorts of things, or in general, because every single interaction he’s had with the stuff are the kind of memories that fuel his nightmares. 

But Keith is  _ tired,  _ and he’s so sick of the tension clenching up his muscles and making his bones so heavy that it’s nearly impossible to hold himself up, and he thinks that at this point, he’d be willing to try  _ anything _ to feel even a modicum better—bad idea or not. At the very least, the alcohol will loosen him up a little bit. 

So he asks for the blue drink, and he’s pleasantly surprised but a bit underwhelmed by the mellowness of it. It’s a bit like sparkling water: carbonated and subtly flavored—a nice, clean taste, reminiscent of freshly picked green apples, or maybe pears—and it lacks all of the bite of alcohol that he’s used to, which is a nice touch. The downside of this is that he’s pretty sure it has virtually no effect on him. He still feels very much the same by the time he finishes the glass as he did when he started it, and _that_ wasn’t the goal of this. So when the waiter drifts back over, Keith selects a fluorescently orange one and downs it in one go, then reaches for a violet-tinted one and sits back to sip it while he waits. He people-watches and listens to the orchestra playing a kind of music incomparable to anything on Earth, meditating deeply through two full songs before he decides that yes, he likes it a lot. 

The waiter comes back. He chooses the next one at random, not realizing until the waiter is gone that it’s a bright shade of viridescent green. He sets that one down without trying it, feeling vaguely ill, but he can’t quite place why. 

When the waiter makes the rounds again, Keith selects pink. Pink is good; it doesn’t give him any weird feelings, and it tastes like something vaguely tropical in an alien kind of way. Pink, he thinks, also reminds him of Allura, and that’s a nice thing.  _ Allura _ is nice, and she’s also one of his best friends, and he cares about her a lot. He frowns as he ponders on that, wondering if she  _ knows  _ it. Surely he’s told her. 

But what if he  _ hasn’t?  _ What if she doesn’t know? 

He should find her, he thinks. At the very least, he should take her one of the pink drinks; she  _ loves _ pink. Lance says that that means Allura is super emo in Altean, and actually, now that Keith is thinking about it, she kind of  _ is.  _ He wonders if she has a box of old band T-shirts hidden in the bottom of her closet, like Shiro does back in their apartment unless Adam got rid of his stuff. 

He wonders if Alteans have T-shirts. 

Keith weaves around and through the sea of brightly-colored and many-appendaged dancing aliens, halfheartedly mumbling  _ “Excuse me’s”  _ even though he largely goes ignored. He makes it to the center of the floor before he realizes that he’s forgotten why he came here in the first place, and then he stands there for a long moment while he plots his next move: to obtain another drink. 

He pushes his way through the other side of the crowd, fetching up almost right into a waiter when he emerges. It feels a little bit like destiny, even though he’s pretty sure this guy isn’t  _ his  _ waiter. His waiter only has four arms, not . . . Keith squints. Seven. But then he remembers that it’s rude to stare at people and count their arms, so he blinks himself back into focus and says: “Hello. You’re doing a great job.” 

Wordlessly, the alien offers him a tray filled with drinks. Keith takes two. 

He wanders around for a while, kind of aimless, but he thinks that isn’t such a bad thing. Who knows—maybe he could easily reacclimate to life as a vagabond. It wasn’t so fun the first time, but maybe this time it would be better. He could just go . . . wherever. Do whatever. He and Isabella used to talk about doing that. Going anywhere in the world as long as it was away from their lives—running away into the wilderness and never being found, letting people wonder what happened to them if they wanted, but also not caring either way if anyone missed them because they were going to be  _ free.  _

It sounds like a fairytale, now that he thinks about it. Like all the original fairytales, without the happy endings. Keith sets down his empty glass on a table that isn’t his, thinking that probably no one will notice or mind. He stops and squints into the crowd, looking for . . . something.  _ Someone,  _ his brain supplies, which is helpful and all, but doesn’t give him a whole lot more to go off of. There are a lot of someones here. 

“Oh,  _ there _ you are. I’ve been looking for you, Keith,” a familiar voice says behind him. Keith blinks, spinning around in the direction of the person who said his name, and  _ oh,  _ Lance is here. Suddenly everything is  _ perfect.  _

“I was looking for you, too,” he says, and Lance smiles, sort of crooked, dizzyingly beautiful.  _ Wow,  _ he loves him. And Lance loves him too. It’s kind of cool, how that worked out, he thinks. Usually things don’t work out the way he wants them to, so it’s nice that the thing he wanted most  _ did.  _

Keith’s been paying attention to the music, so he notices it when the song changes from something upbeat and energetic to a  _ different  _ song that’s upbeat and energetic. “Hey—let’s dance,” he says abruptly, reaching out to grab one of Lance’s hands and tug. His boyfriend lifts an eyebrow. 

“How many of these have you had?” he asks. Keith has no idea what he’s talking about, until Lance carefully plucks his half-full glass of something yellow out of his hand and sets it on the table behind them. Keith frowns in contemplation, trying to think back, but his memories are kind of just . . . floating up there. Like clouds. When he tries to grab onto them they dissipate. “I forgot. I think I’m a little bit drunk,” he confesses, and Lance’s mouth wobbles like something’s really funny but he’s trying not to laugh. 

“You’re  _ very  _ drunk,” he tells him, and Keith nods, because that makes sense. And then he tugs on Lance’s hand again, remembering what they were talking about before. “Dance with me,” he insists, and he thinks that Lance will  _ definitely  _ say yes, because he loves dancing. And Keith loves dancing  _ with Lance,  _ so it’s perfect. 

Lance says yes by taking the hand that Keith is holding onto and using it to turn him into a spin. Keith laughs, immediately delighted, and then Lance pulls him in close to his chest and he thinks this is even better. 

“You’re in a much better mood than earlier, huh?” he says, and Keith frowns. He tries to remember  _ earlier,  _ but it results in the same cloud-chase as before; he’s going to have to rely on Lance’s memory for him. “I was in a bad mood?” 

Lance hums an affirmative, though there’s this little scrunch in his eyebrows that might be worry. Keith frowns again;  _ that  _ shouldn’t be there. “You seemed like you were having a rough day.” 

“Oh.” Lance spins him again and he’s temporarily distracted, but he remembers when he turns back into him.  _ Fix the scrunch. _ “Well, I’m feeling great now.” 

“Seems like,” Lance agrees with a little smile—the furrow between his eyebrows dissipates, like a . . . like a cloud. The smile is fleeting, though, quickly morphing into incredulity as the song the orchestra is playing reaches its crescendo. “Okay,  _ how  _ are you still this steady on your feet? I thought you were going to flop over within like five seconds, and I’d have to carry you off the dance floor, but you are . . . nope, you’re  _ actually  _ dancing.” 

Keith squints at him. “Well, yeah. I said I wanted to dance, not . . . flop.” 

Lance shakes his head, disbelieving. “You’re an enigma, Keith.” He says it like it’s a good thing, so Keith assumes that it is. That’s one of the great things about Lance—everything he says about Keith is  _ good,  _ or  _ nice.  _ No one’s ever gone so much out of their way to say pretty things to Keith without the intention of getting something out of it, but Lance isn’t  _ like that.  _ He’s just a genuinely  _ good  _ person, all the time, just because. Keith loves him so much. 

“I love you.  _ So  _ much,” Keith voices the thought, because it’s important, and it’s true, and he likes saying it. He likes the way the words feel in his mouth, safe and wanted and warm. Lance smiles and says it back to him, while in the background the song changes to something slower and more . . . melodic. Melancholic? One of those. “I love you too, babe.” 

Lance’s hands find their way to Keith’s waist, slowing them down into something that’s less  _ dancing  _ and more just  _ swaying back and forth to music.  _ But this is fine; this is as good as dancing, Keith decides, as he brings his arms up to drape his hands behind Lance’s neck. He presses their foreheads together and closes his eyes, smiling into the contact. The warmth spreads from his face all the way down to his  _ toes.  _ “I mean it, you know. I really love you, and I know it’s  _ real _ . Because you . . . you’re the  _ best  _ boyfriend, and, and like—I  _ know  _ that, because I used to have the worst boyfriend, and he was the opposite of you in  _ all  _ the ways.” 

They slow down even more, even though the song hasn’t changed. They’re barely moving at all. “What?” Lance says. His voice is strangely hard to hear all of a sudden; Keith guesses it’s because there’re so many people around. “Keith, what are you talking about?” 

Keith blinks open his eyes and sees that Lance is visibly confused. He thinks it’s confused. Or maybe it’s another word.  _ Con . . .  _ something. He’s something. 

Keith shrugs, because he thinks Lance is looking for some kind of explanation, but it’s kind of hard to explain something that’s just . . .  _ obvious.  _ “You know,” he says, glad that they’re dancing so he can disguise his discomfort as a sway on purpose. “Like, you’re . . .  _ nice _ to me. You treat me like a person even when I’m an asshole, and you let me cry when I’m sad and try to make me feel better even though it’s usually just me being stupid about something. And like, I know you probably want to have sex with me because you’re a normal person, but you haven’t  _ made me  _ because you care when I’m uncomfortable and it’s just—it’s really  _ nice,  _ okay? That you care about that. You’re a really good person, Lance. And a good boyfriend. And I love you.” 

They aren’t moving at all anymore. They’re just—standing at the edge of the dance floor, surrounded on three sides by people who are  _ actually  _ dancing. Keith frowns, pulling away a little to figure out what’s wrong. “Lance? Why did we stop?” 

And then he sees the look on Lance’s face, and his heart sinks as he realizes that something  _ is  _ actually wrong. He’s turned as pale as a ghost, and Keith frowns worriedly as he lifts a hand to press against his cheek. He doesn’t feel . . .  _ cold,  _ or anything. Or hot. Or whatever people feel when they’re sick. “Lance, what’s wrong?” he asks. Anxiety begins to bubble softly in his veins, popping and fizzing. 

Lance blinks, and then he looks at Keith and seems to come back to himself. He smiles, but something about it seems _off_ somehow, and then he shakes his head. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, Keith. But, uh, listen.” He hesitates, lifting a hand to tuck Keith’s bangs behind his ears. The cool air feels nice on his face. “You are very . . . _very_ drunk. More drunk than I thought. And you’re probably going to crash really soon, so I think we should probably go back to the castle, okay?” 

“Oh.” Keith blinks. He doesn’t  _ feel  _ drunk, but he guesses Lance probably knows better, since he drinks more often at these things than Keith. “Okay.” 

Lance tucks him under his arm, guiding him away from the dance floor, and his vision goes kind of blurry for a moment as he looks down at his feet. When he looks back up, he realizes that  _ hey,  _ Shiro’s here now. 

“We’re gonna go ahead and head back to the castle,” Lance is saying. There’s something a little bit off about his voice, too, and Keith frowns as he tilts into him, tucking his face against his neck. “You’re really warm,” he notices, humming pleasantly as he lets his eyes flutter shut. “Like a—like something warm. Did I tell you that I think you’re really nice?” 

Lance takes a deep breath, and Keith feels it tousle the hair on top of his head. “Yeah, Keith,” he says. 

Shiro’s voice flickers like the air above an open flame, fading in and out of Keith’s hearing when he asks, “Is he drunk?” He sounds worried. Keith frowns, turns his face so that he can squint at his brother. 

“Don’t worry, Shiro,” he tells him, “S’not like last time.” The assurance doesn’t make the look on Shiro’s face go away, though. Why is everyone being so  _ weird?  _

“Do you need me to take him?” he asks, and annoyance prickles along Keith’s skin. He’s talking about him like he’s not even here.  _ I’m not a little kid,  _ he thinks, and he almost says it, but then Lance shakes his head and tells Shiro, “Nah, I’ve got him,” and Keith huffs, giving up. He’s not really in the mood for a fight right now, anyway. He thinks he probably spends too much time fighting. 

He’s kind of tired of it. He wants to sleep. Lance’s arm tightens around him and he says, “You can sleep soon, okay? We’re going home now,” and Keith thinks  _ home,  _ and suddenly he wants to be there more than anywhere else. 

He closes his eyes again and he and Lance teleport. Or, that’s the only thing that makes sense to Keith, because when he blinks open his eyes they’re in the hallway between their rooms on the castle and Lance is pressing the button to open his door. “C’mon, just a few more steps,” he says, and then Keith is stumbling forward with him and he feels Lance’s arm leave his shoulders so that he can gently sit him down on his bed. He laments the loss of warmth until Lance disappears  _ entirely,  _ and then anxiety shoots through him like a bolt of lightning as he reaches out to grab onto his wrist.  _ “Wait— _ where are you going?” 

Lance stills, and after a moment he settles his hand on Keith’s head right above his ear, gently detangling the strands of his hair there. Keith leans into it, eyelashes fluttering as Lance tells him, “I’m going to get you some water, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.” 

Keith doesn’t like that, but he bites his lip and nods. “Promise?” 

“I promise,  _ amado.” _ Lance bends to press a kiss to the top of his head. “You think you can change into some pajamas while I’m gone? It’s not good to sleep in formal clothes.” 

“Okay.” He clings tightly to Lance’s hand for a single moment longer before he releases him. He begins feeling anxious again almost immediately, even though Lance stays a little longer to find some more comfortable clothes for Keith to wear, and as he watches the door slide closed behind him as he leaves, he wonders if he’s really going to come back.

_ You’re being stupid,  _ some voice inside of him says,  _ of course he’s going to come back.  _ He’s not sure if he can trust it, but he decides that’s better than worrying, so he lets it go and fumbles his way out of his formal pants and into the red paladin pajama ones. He gets stuck on the shirt though, the complexity of it too much for his intoxicated brain, and he gives up on trying to take it off the way he’s supposed to. He’s trying with no luck to pull it over his head when Lance comes back; the instant the door opens he lets his arms fall back to his sides, relief soothing the fear he’d forgotten about. “You came back.” 

“Of course I did,” Lance replies, and the unhesitant way he says it makes Keith feel warm. Lance comes over to sit with him on the bed, setting the water he brought to the side as he reaches to help Keith with his shirt. It comes away in a couple of smooth movements, and Keith blinks, dazzled. “You’re magic,” he tells Lance, and then he tugs him forward and kisses him. It lasts a much shorter time than he wants it to—Lance pulls away after only a couple seconds, and Keith frowns as he shifts a little bit out of his space, returning a moment later only to press a water pouch into his hands. He already put the straw in it for him, Keith notices, and that’s really nice, but it’s not what he wants. 

“I’m not thirsty,” he tells Lance, tries to give it back, but his boyfriend shakes his head. “You need to drink it, Keith. I don’t know how much you drank, but you’re  _ definitely  _ dehydrated,” he says firmly, and Keith frowns again. Lance is always super serious about staying hydrated, and that means he’s probably not going to let it go until Keith drinks it—so with a long-suffering sigh, he relents. 

He drains the water as quickly as he can, crumples up the drained pouch and presses it back into Lance’s waiting hand when he’s done. He watches with quietly growing impatience as Lance sets the trash to the side, and as soon as he turns back to him, Keith puts his hands on his shoulders and leans in to kiss him again. But Lance stops him with a hand on his chest, shaking his head again and saying, “Keith, no.” 

Keith blinks in surprised confusion, unconsciously tightens his grip on his boyfriend’s shoulders. “Why not?” 

“You’re drunk,” Lance says, like that’s supposed to be enough of an explanation. Keith doesn’t get it. 

“It . . . it doesn’t matter?” he tries. “We can—I mean, if you want, we can do something. You’re my boyfriend, and I  _ want  _ you to . . . I—I want  _ you,  _ so it’s fine, right?” 

“No, love, it isn’t.” Lance’s voice is heavy with something that’s . . . too much, but Keith can’t figure out what it  _ is.  _ “Listen. Right now, whether you feel like it or not, you’re in a really vulnerable position. And I’m not. So it would be . . . really, really  _ wrong  _ of me to let anything happen while you’re like this. It would hurt you, and I won’t—I will  _ never  _ hurt you like that, okay?” 

That heaviness is in Lance’s eyes, too, as he looks at Keith, like he’s telling him something that hurts him. And Keith doesn’t like that—doesn’t like seeing Lance in pain, doesn’t like being the reason  _ why.  _ “I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” he tells him, “I trust you.” He blinks into blue like it’ll help him to  _ understand,  _ but it doesn’t—he’s still so confused, and Lance looks so  _ sad, _ and suddenly there’s something thick welling in his throat because he doesn’t know how to  _ fix  _ this. 

“I messed something up, didn’t I?” he whispers. The proof of it presses hot against the backs of his eyes—he’s done something wrong, but he didn’t  _ mean  _ to. “I’m sorry.” 

“No,” Lance says, “No, Keith, you don’t have to  _ apologize.  _ Sunshine—come here.” He reaches for Keith, and Keith lets himself be pulled into his arms without protest. He closes his eyes, presses his forehead to Lance’s shoulder, and tries not to sniffle. He doesn’t know why he feels like crying, but there’s a voice deep inside of him saying that he  _ can’t.  _ It’s not a very nice voice—it feels angry and sharp, like fingernails biting into his skin and hurting him. He wishes it would be quiet. 

“I’m going to be really mad at myself in the morning, aren’t I?” he whispers it at the very moment that he realizes, and bites his lip until it hurts enough to distract him from the heated waves swimming in his vision. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you. No one—no one’s s’posed to know. You weren’t . . . you’re not s’posed to ever know.” 

“Why not?” Lance’s hands are gentle on his skin, careful like Keith is something valuable that he doesn’t want to break. His voice is the same, careful and gentle, when he asks him, “Why don’t you want me to know?” 

Keith falls silent. He tilts his head, curving into Lance’s neck like maybe if he stays there, he won’t ever have to come out again. He listens to Lance breathe, lets the sound lull him into a quiet place even as his heart twinges and clenches and twists. 

“Everyone leaves, Lance,” he whispers, and it  _ hurts.  _ “First my—my mom . . . I don’t even know if she died or if she just didn’t want me. And then my dad—I know he didn’t  _ mean  _ to, but he still—he still  _ did it.  _ And I wasn’t e-enough for Isabella—and Shiro’s left me _ twice,”  _ his voice cracks, and his next breath comes out as a shudder, and he has to stop and feel Lance breathe to remember how to do the same. “I don’t want to lose anyone else. I don’t . . . don’t want you to  _ leave.  _ And you  _ will.  _ Because you deserve better, and I—I know that, and I’m  _ sorry.  _ I know it’s wrong that I keep lying to you. I just don’t want you to go.” 

“Baby,” Lance says, the single word thick with grief—this deep, wrenching heartbreak that Keith can feel in his  _ bones.  _ “I’m not going to leave you because of something that happened to you. That’s not . . . that’s not how love works. As long as you want me around, that’s where I’m going to be.  _ With  _ you.” 

Keith’s eyes begin to burn again, and he squeezes his eyes shut against the wetness that wells up in the corners. He clings to Lance, breathes and whispers, “Do you promise?” 

“I  _ promise,” _ Lance says. He holds Keith back just as tightly, presses tiny kisses to his head until Keith’s quietly cried himself out and is just—drained. And sleepy. He wants to  _ sleep.  _ He feels like he hasn’t been able to rest in years, and he thinks it’s because his brain’s been too busy running. He wants to stop. 

“Sleep,” Lance tells him after a while. He sounds tired himself, like the brightness that lives in him went down with the sun. “We can talk about this some more in the morning, okay?” 

Keith nods halfheartedly. He thinks that he’s probably not going to want to talk about it in the morning. He doesn’t want to talk about it  _ ever.  _ “Will you stay until I fall asleep?” 

“Yes.” Lance nudges at his shoulders gently until Keith reluctantly unpeels himself from him, lets Lance tuck him into bed and press a final kiss to his forehead. It’s an almost childlike action, he thinks: innocent, without the undercurrent of dark, vicious things. He thinks it would make his eyes prickle, if he had any tears or energy left to spend. 

It’s too quiet. In the silence, it’s just his and Lance’s breathing, and when Keith starts to drift, it’s too easy for Lance’s breaths to become anyone’s. He musters up the energy to ask one final question, as he holds tightly to Lance’s hand where it rests on the pillow beside his head. “Hey, Lance?” 

“Yeah, sweetheart?” 

Lance’s other hand brushes Keith’s bangs out of his eyes; Keith doesn’t even realize it was bothering him until it’s gone. He closes his eyes, his breath leaving him in a tiny sigh as he scoots closer to Lance’s warmth. “Will you sing to me?” 

“Of course.” Keith’s heart settles down at once, as he tucks his face further into his pillow, as the sound of Lance beginning to hum fills the quiet space. It’s something soft and light and slow, the song that he sings: the words hushed like a reverent prayer, familiar and tender like the sound of coming home.  _ “Los pollitos dicen, pío, pío, pío, cuando tienen hambre, y cuando tienen frío . . .”  _

Keith breathes in easily, Lance’s voice soothing even to the farthest reaches of his mind.  _ Magic,  _ he thinks, and breathes out. Safe and somnolent and swept up in the sea of Lance’s lullaby, he sleeps. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case anyone's wondering: the first song lance sings to keith is "peace" by taylor swift. the second one is a lullaby, "los pollitos dicen." lance singing both of these songs to keith makes me want to cry in equal measure.


	8. without realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s his blade, clanging discordantly against the gladiator’s staff. Unamused laughter choking in his throat as he swings it again, spinning away and losing his footing. For a heart-stopping moment he thinks he’s going to fall, but he regains his balance in time to block the next hit. The ghost who was with him in the courtyard and the kitchen hadn’t followed him here, and it’s such a blessed relief. It is completely, consumingly quiet aside from the clatter of metal and the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. No one is screaming. The silence is bliss. 
> 
> But then there’s a brief pause as the sequence finishes, as the gladiator bumps up to the next level, and his vision flickers as he sways on his feet. When he looks up again, the gladiator’s face has changed. Suddenly, this isn’t fun anymore. It’s a fight for his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> agh thanks so much for all the comments on the last chapter <3 i finished this one much more quickly than i thought so i wanted to go ahead and get it up, because most likely the next one's going to take longer. 
> 
> also, i know this fic is already super long, but we...still have a long ways to go before we get to the end. i'm really sorry if anyone was hoping for some resolution in this chapter. and uh, if you havent buckled your seatbelt yet, you might want to go ahead and do that now. 
> 
> trigger warnings for: 
> 
> -assault scenes  
> -grooming behaviors   
> -alcohol   
> -vomiting

_She’s sitting on the third step of his boyfriend’s porch when he and Madelyn get back. She’s both a welcome and_ very _unwelcome_ _surprise, sitting there in her ratty combat boots and looking at him with her midnight eyes like she was never gone._

_ Looking at him gravely, like he doesn’t know why she’s here yet. But he knows.  _

_ “Hey,” she says, and Madelyn glances at Keith with uncertain green eyes:  _ you know her?  _ Keith nods. “Go inside and start on your homework. I’ll come help you in a minute.” The girl doesn’t ask any more questions; she bounds up the three steps and into the house, the glass door catching and slowly closing behind her and her pink backpack before she disappears from view. Isabella turns to watch her disappear with detached curiosity. But she doesn’t ask questions either, turning back to Keith and squinting against the sun as she tells him, “Let’s take a walk.”  _

_ So they talk a walk, and it’s like it used to be: strolling right down the middle of the street like they’re unaware that a car could roll up and run them over if they didn’t move fast enough. Truth is, they’re both overly aware of it. They don’t talk about it.  _

_ They  _ never  _ talk about it. Frustration rises up in Keith, suddenly, as he thinks of how  _ unfair  _ it is. He hasn’t seen her in two years, and now she shows up out of nowhere and he’s, what? Supposed to just  _ accept  _ that after today, he’s never going to see her again? Part of him wonders why she even showed up at all, then.  _

_ (But he knows why. He’s the one who made her promise. He doesn’t ask her why.)  _

_ “Keith,” she finally starts, when they’ve turned a corner and his boyfriend’s house is completely out of sight. He wonders if she’s somehow managed to figure  _ that  _ out within only two minutes, but that’s another question he keeps to himself. “I tried. I’m sorry.”  _

_ Keith looks away from her. It’s a warm day, but he still has to fight not to shiver in his jacket when he quietly asks, “What happened?”  _

_ “I got sent back to my mom, awhile back. She did this like, twelve-week rehab program, and surprise surprise, they decided she was fit enough to be a parent again. Bet you won’t believe how quickly she invited her boyfriends back over.”  _

_ Keith doesn’t want to know. There are fingerprint bruises all up and down her arms.  _

_ His throat is thick with frustration, with anguish, and he can’t get the word  _ unfair  _ out of his head. Why does it always have to be  _ them? _ he wonders. Why can’t they just be  _ left alone? 

_ Isabella unearths a packet of cigarettes from her pocket, holds them out to him, and while part of him is tempted for old times’ sake, he really doesn’t want to have to explain to his boyfriend why he’s covered in smoke, later. He shakes his head and she shrugs, shoves the box back in her pocket and lights it. Smoke is filtering around her face when she finally speaks again, “Enough with my sob story though. Tell me yours.”  _

_ That draws Keith’s gaze to her. “What are you talking about.”  _

_ And she gives him this look, and his heart sinks because of  _ course  _ she figured something out, of course she did. She’s always been a hell of a lot more perceptive than him. Sometimes he wishes he could be as smart as her; other times, the thought of having even a modicum of her intelligence is nearly crippling. “Don’t treat me like an idiot,” she says, “Also, your concealer’s smeared.”  _

_ He catches his hand halfway to his collar, and he knows he’s caught when she tracks the movement without an ounce of surprise. He sighs, drops his hand, and shoves both deep into his pockets.  _

_ “S’not so bad,” he says with a shrug, looking away like she won’t be able to see the lie if she can’t see directly into his eyes.  _ If you can’t see it, it’s not there,  _ and all that. “I mean, nothing like you. It’s just my boyfriend. Most of the time, things are pretty okay with him. They’ve been okay.”  _

_ “What about the rest of the time?”  _

_ Keith exhales, slowly, through his nose. When he breathes in again, the air is filled with Isabella’s secondhand smoke. “I manage,” is all he says.  _

_ “So what the hell are you doing with him, anyway?” she wonders. There’s nothing judgmental in the way she asks; when he glances at her, she’s gazing off into the distance, cigarette between her chipped black fingernails, looking almost peaceful.  _

_ Keith swallows thickly, switches his gaze down to their shoes. Her worn boots and his expensive sneakers, eating up pavement, kicking stray pebbles that have the misfortune of crossing their path. “He loves me, Isabella,” he starts, hears her sharp inhale, and continues on before she can say anything, “Or so he says. I don’t know—I don’t know how much I believe it anymore. I did, but . . . but I don’t know. Either way, he’s better than nothing, right? I mean, at least I know him, and he doesn’t hurt me  _ all  _ the time. You were right before, when you said things were always going to be like this, in some way or another. And you and I both know it could be worse.”  _

_ “Well, fuck,” Isabella says eloquently. Keith laughs a little, but nothing is funny. Nothing ever is, with them. He bites his lip.  _

_ “There’s something else.” _

_ “What’s that?”  _

_ He takes another deep breath. “The girl back there . . . that’s his little sister.”  _

_ Isabella stops walking. Thunderclouds roll across her expression when she turns to look at him. “Has he . . .?”  _

_ “No.” Keith’s throat is thick with his desperation to have  _ one  _ person listen to his worries and not call him irrational. He couldn’t even talk about this with anyone else if he wanted to—who’s he going to tell? His boyfriend’s  _ mom?  _ “No, he’s never touched her, but sometimes he  _ looks  _ at her and I—I worry about what would happen if I wasn’t here. She’s nine, Isabella. She still believes in Santa Claus and thinks that storks bring babies and drop them on doorsteps. I want to keep it that way.”  _

_ “Fuck,” she repeats. Keith’s breath is shaky on the next exhale. “Yeah.”  _

_ “But you . . . Keith, you have to know you aren’t obligated to anyone but yourself. You—you have to think about  _ you.  _ No one else is going to. Let someone else worry about that kid and get the hell out. Go somewhere—”  _

“No,” _Keith interrupts, and this is the first time during the entire conversation that an emotion breaks into their conversation. Unexpected, flaring_ anger, _like the first flash of lightning during monsoon season._ _“I’m not going anywhere. I’m_ tired _of running. So don’t . . . don’t_ look _at me like that, like you know better than me. You don’t get to judge me for my choices. At least_ I’m _not the one giving up.”_

_ He regrets the words as soon as they tear from his mouth; there’s the shaking of Isabella’s frame, her placid, uncaring expression breaking. Some of that pain she’s always tried so hard to hide from him finally bleeds through, and Keith  _ hates  _ himself for putting it there.  _

_ He wants to say he’s sorry. But he doesn’t.  _

_ “I’m sorry,” she whispers, twists her hands, bites her lip. She looks so uncharacteristically  _ guilty  _ when she flickers broken glass eyes to his own that it almost tears his chest open. “I—I wish there was something I could do. I wish I could help you. But I can’t even help myself.”  _

_ “It’s okay,” Keith whispers back, even though it isn’t. They both know it isn’t. But they don’t want to admit it—they don’t want to  _ talk  _ about it, so they do what they’ve always done instead: pretend they don’t see it, pretend nothing is happening.  _

_ After a moment, she starts walking again, and he falls into step beside her again, and he imagines that maybe they can just keep going until they fall straight into the slowly sinking sun and disappear.  _

  
  


_____

  
  


A soft rapping on the door nudges Keith from sleep into the world of the living. 

He slowly peels his eyes open, squinting into his pillow and wondering why it feels like all of the stuffing in it has been shoved between his ears. Then the knocking comes again, and a voice muffled by the door calls, “Keith? You awake?” 

It’s Lance. With a small groan, Keith lifts himself on his hands, the sheets falling away to expose his skin to the too-cool castle air. He frowns down at himself, quiet alarm bells ringing as he scans the room for a shirt. He finds one at the end of the bed, fumbles his hand across the mattress to it, and then shoves it over his head. “Yeah, I’m up,” he says, loudly enough that Lance will hear, and winces a little at the way his voice scratches in his throat like a needle across a record. 

The door slides open, and Lance slips in, light from the hallway filtering in for a moment until it shuts behind him. The room washes itself in faint blue again, as Lance navigates by the single bar of light above the door to guide him over. He sets a plate of something down on the nightstand and perches at the end of the bed, a water pouch held between his fingers. “Morning. How’re you feeling?” Lance asks, voice strangely hushed. 

Keith squints at him, but takes the water without question. “Morning . . . Fine? Why are you talking like that? And why did you bring me . . . breakfast in bed?” 

They almost always eat breakfast together, as a team, in the dining hall. The rare occasions that they don’t are usually after intense battles, or something else to that degree. That’s one of the team rules that  _ Lance  _ had come up with, years and years ago, and he’s the last person to ever break it. 

_ Something must’ve happened last night.  _ As soon as the thought hits him, he begins combing through his memory of the night before, trying to recall anything—an ambush, maybe? Rebel spies? An unexpected Galra fleet? But nothing clicks into place. In fact, the more he tries to remember, the more fuzzy the whole thing gets. 

Lance blinks at him, this peculiar look passing over his face fleetingly, almost too quickly to be able to catch in the dim lighting. “You . . . don’t remember? You got really drunk last night.” 

Keith sips slowly at his water to disguise his frown, trying to reframe everything given this new information. Lance’s weirdly quiet voice and neglect to turn on the lights when he came in make sense, now—but nothing else does. “I did?” 

There’s a part of Keith that wants to discard the very idea of it. The thought of himself touching any sort of alcohol to begin with, let alone being stupid enough to get  _ drunk  _ is almost laughable, in the kind of not-really-funny, darkly derisive way. But the thing is, even if he  _ had  _ done that, he doesn’t feel the slightest bit hungover. Keith knows hangovers—the unbearable pounding inside his skull like a metal fist knocking on an unyielding door; heaviness in his bones and aches all over and nausea swirling and a bad taste in his mouth—and the slight cotton-y feeling in his brain definitely isn’t it. But he doesn’t see why Lance would lie to him about something like that, and he doesn’t think he is. 

Lance is looking at him with this searching but otherwise unreadable look on his face. “How much do you remember about last night?” he slowly asks. 

Keith frowns again; he goes back in his memories again, tries harder to grasp onto the haziness, and out of the cloud come flashes: something blue catching in the light; the sound of otherworldly music; the ring of quiet laughter. “Didn’t we—we danced, right? I remember dancing.” 

“Uh, yeah.” Lance’s nod is strangely reluctant, and a quiet anxiety begins to tickle at Keith’s mind. “Yeah, we danced for a while.” 

_ There’s something else.  _ Keith wracks his brain for something,  _ anything;  _ when still nothing else comes up, his worry begins to grow, creeping through his veins like a trickle of icy water. Lance is acting  _ weird;  _ what if it’s because Keith said something? There are a million different things he could have said while drunk, and he doesn’t underestimate a single one of them—he has so many fragmented, incriminating thoughts floating around at all times that it would have been almost  _ too  _ easy for something to slip through.  _ What if what if what if?  _ “Then what happened?” 

“I brought you home. Helped you change, kind of—you got tangled up in your shirt and needed some help. You called me magical.” 

And that explains the waking up without a shirt on. Keith nods slowly, even as a scrap of a fearful thought slips through the doors of his mind— _ what if you and Lance . . .?— _ shutting it down before it can become anything.  _ Don’t be ridiculous,  _ he tells himself. He’d know if something happened. More than that, he knows Lance, and Lance wouldn’t  _ let  _ anything happen. Especially when he takes into account that it was probably the farthest thing from attractive, walking Keith home and helping him stumble into bed to pass out. 

As for the calling Lance magical . . . Keith huffs a quiet laugh. “Did I call you anything else?” he wonders. 

Lance reaches out to hold Keith’s free hand, where it rests on the blanket covering his lap. The way he laces their fingers together is as familiar to Keith now as the sound of his voice or the flash of his smile. “A couple things,” he admits, in this soft, careful tone. “You kept saying how nice I was, how you think I’m a good boyfriend. I think uh, once, you said I was ‘warm like something warm?’” 

“How poetic of me,” Keith says wryly. Then he slowly shakes his head. “Yeah, no, I don’t remember any of that.” But he thinks of dancing with Lance with a mind clear of all his usual concerns, thinks of himself drunk and rambling something about how much he loves his boyfriend, and that doesn’t sound like the worst thing he’s ever heard. In fact, it sounds . . . kind of nice. “Sounds like it was a good night, though,” he says, and squeezes Lance’s hand in his, and smiles. 

Lance’s expression is impossible to read in the dark. Keith thinks it’s a bit strange how he’s not laughing about this at least a little, but it probably has something to do with how he’s supposed to have a severe hangover right about now. Knowing Lance, he’d taken that into account and is being sensitive to it. 

He really is a good boyfriend. “Hey, you know I really love you, right?” he says. Lance answers by gently tugging his half-finished water out of his hand, sets it down beside them, and wraps Keith up in an unexpected, but really nice hug. He melts into it, smiling at the warmth that seeps from Lance directly into his bones. The chill of anxiety from before is barely even a memory anymore. 

“I love you too. So much, Keith,” Lance tells him, and he thinks there’s something a little different in the way he says it, but for all he knows, it could just be the lowered pitch of his voice.  _ Stop looking for problems where there aren’t any,  _ he tells himself. He could obsess over what he doesn’t remember until he drives himself crazy, but from where he’s at, he doesn’t really see the point. Nothing bad happened to him, and Lance is sitting here with his arms around him and breakfast that he brought just for him sitting on the nightstand, so it’s obvious to him that nothing incriminating came out last night, either.  _ It was a good night,  _ he thinks. He ignores the quiet little tug beneath his ribcage, quietly whispering:  _ there’s something else. Something you’re missing.  _

“So, uh,” Lance says, “Pidge also, apparently, got super drunk last night. I’m not sure how hungover she is, but Allura went ahead and called off team training for the day just in case she’s gone into gremlin mode. We’ve got the entire morning free to do whatever we want.” 

Keith smiles again as he pulls away. “Sounds great,” he says, and shuffles back until he can lean against the headboard, and pats the space next to him for Lance to sit. “Hand me that plate and start the next episode of  _ Forbidden Magic.  _ I want to know what Grrthid’s going to do now that Evil Diplomat Chad proposed to Uv’eet.” 

Lance does just that. Halfway through the episode, Keith shifts to rest his head on his shoulder, and Lance’s arm automatically comes up to wrap around him. He smiles at the easy, warm contact, and thinks that this is probably the best morning he’s had in a long time. And while he’s not foolish enough to think that it will last, he intends to make the best of it while it’s here. He squeezes Lance’s hand, and Lance squeezes back, and it’s normal.  _ It’s good.  _ And that’s all. 

  
  


_____

  
  


They’re doing relief work on a small planet that’s recently taken a hit from Zarkon when Shiro approaches him. “Hey,” he says, eyes darting around like he’s checking to make sure no one’s paying attention to them. No one is; Keith is once again plagued with a migraine, and Lance took one look at him and sent him to package boxes of food and other necessities for the affected families in the city. Everyone else on packing duty is minding their own business or chatting quietly with their neighbors. 

“Hey.” Keith doesn’t look up from counting bottles of water. “Come to berate me about my latest screw-up?” 

There’s a part of him that feels guilty for being difficult, but he tells that part of him to go to hell. Because Shiro is going to be just as difficult to him, isn’t he? That’s all they know how to do lately—avoid each other so they don’t have to talk about their problems, blow up the minute it looks like the conversation is going to take a turn they don’t want it to. 

“Keith. Don’t do that.” 

“Don’t do what?” Keith’s hands still, and he cranes his neck back so he can look up at his brother. His expression is tense seriousness, worry pulling at the corners of his eyes. “It’s why you’re here, right? Which conversation is this—the one about my boyfriend, or the one about me drinking?” 

Shiro lets out this long, weary sigh, and then he pulls out a chair across from Keith. He looks at him for a long moment, and Keith looks back at him. “Can we at least talk about both?” he finally says. 

Keith flicks his gaze back down. He starts grouping together the containers of pre-packed food into stacks. “It was a one-time thing,” he says, voice free of inflection. “I was having a bad night, so yeah, I drank a little. What’s the big deal? I’m twenty-one, so I’m not even breaking your standards.” It’s a subtle jab at an old argument they’d had, back when Shiro had first returned and found out that Keith started letting Pidge drink alcohol at parties. That fight hadn’t ever reached a conclusion—just a stiff impasse. 

(Look, Keith had thought about it for a long time. They’d all sat down and had a conversation about it, and ultimately decided that if Pidge is old enough to fight in an intergalactic war, she’s old enough to have a glass or two of wine at dinner. This way, she’s not sneaking behind their backs and doing it; someone is with her at  _ all times,  _ so she’s never in any kind of danger. Keith isn’t stupid, and he’s  _ not  _ irresponsible. He would never let anything happen to her.) 

“You know your age isn’t the issue here, Keith,” Shiro says, and Keith feels a flash of irritation at the word  _ issue.  _

“There is no issue. I just wanted to loosen up a little. It’s not like I was trying to drink myself to death.” He mutters this last part, and Shiro says nothing about it, even though a small, vindictive part of Keith wishes he would, just so he’d have something sensitive enough to justify forcing him to  _ leave.  _ “Anyway, I don’t remember much of it, so there’s that. From what I  _ do  _ remember, it was actually a pretty decent night. Not worth a lecture.” 

But evidently, to Shiro, it  _ is.  _ “What do you mean, you don’t remember?” he asks, an edge in his voice. “How drunk did you let yourself get? Do you even remember that Lance was the one who took you back to your room?” 

“Does it matter if I remember or not?” (For the record, Keith still doesn’t.) “Don’t try to make Lance the problem. You and I both know he wouldn’t  _ take advantage  _ of me or something. And if you’re trying to insinuate that it’s something he’d even be capable of, you can feel free to leave now.” 

“No, that’s not . . .” Shiro trails off, frustrated. “I’m not  _ saying  _ that Lance would do something. It’s just—you’re being  _ so  _ reckless right now. Does Lance even know  _ anything  _ about your history?” 

Keith doesn’t reply. He’s counting again. 

“Keith. You have to tell him.” 

“Why?” Keith bursts abruptly, stilling again. “Why would I do something like that? Shiro, I  _ love him.”  _

“And he loves you,” Shiro says evenly. At the skeptical look Keith shoots him, he raises an eyebrow. “What? I’m not blind. It’s as easy to see the love for you on his face as it is to see the glitter. But keeping all of this from him isn’t  _ fair.  _ He’s going to start asking questions, and what are you going to tell him?” 

“Nothing,” Keith replies. And then he shakes his head, bothered but trying not to let it show. “I don’t know. Look, it’s not anything you need to worry about, anyway. It’s my business.” 

“When did this happen?” Shiro asks, and now Keith thinks there’s something deeper to his frustration, something like quiet, unacknowledged sadness when he says, “Your business  _ used to be  _ my business. You used to let me worry about you. You used to  _ talk  _ to me. Why are you icing me out?” 

“Things change,” Keith says, slowly, to hide the slight tremor in his voice. “There comes a point where I have to take care of myself. You don’t have to try to protect me anymore, Shiro.” 

“I’m always going to try to protect you,” Shiro says quietly. “You’re my little brother.” 

Keith takes a deep breath, ignores the way it stabs his ribs on the way out. “Maybe it’s time you stop trying so hard,” he says. Then he pushes back his chair, pointedly  _ doesn’t  _ look Shiro in the eye, and leaves. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_ His name is Sommers, and he’s Shiro’s TA. Keith hates him the moment he first lays eyes on him.  _

_ He’s a nice guy. The kind with a lazy, catlike grin and sparkling dark eyes and a neat, clean haircut. He wears button-downs on casual Fridays and drinks decaf lattes and he always tries to make conversation with Keith whenever he has to stick around after class to wait for Shiro to finish packing up. He’s the kind of guy to watch you closely enough to figure out your favorite brand of chips and then bring them for you every single afternoon, and everyone thinks that it’s just because he’s a thoughtful person.  _

_ There’s another word for guys like Sommers. Keith just does his best to ignore him.  _

_ By now, Keith is well-versed in games like this. In the sly flattering comments that are innocent enough not to attract attention, but are unmistakably sexual to anyone listening for it. The way he goes out of his way to brush against Keith’s hand when he passes out last week’s pop quiz. He makes Keith uncomfortable and he  _ knows it,  _ but Shiro never notices and Keith never mentions it so he gets away with it. Keith lives in the hope that if he doesn’t rise to the bait, eventually Sommers will get bored and stop.  _

_ Sommers doesn’t stop. He gets bolder.  _

_ He’ll squeeze Keith’s shoulder as he passes by his desk. Or he’ll wink at him when Keith correctly answers a question in class. On a class trip, he’ll slide into the seat beside Keith on the bus while Shiro is making conversation with the driver, hand finding a place on Keith’s thigh as he makes some lighthearted remark about the weather. Keith wants to ask him to stop touching him but he doesn’t want to make a scene; he’s gotten into trouble too many times lately, and he doesn’t want to give Shiro another headache. He looks out the window and waits until Shiro comes back. Sommers casually slides his hand back before he can see and slips back across the aisle.  _

_ It all comes to a head on a Tuesday evening. Adam has just started on dinner and Keith is doing homework at the table when Shiro comes into the kitchen, running a hand through his hair, exhausted and frustrated. “I think I left my laptop in the classroom,” he says, “I’m going to run and go get it really quick.”  _

_ Shiro’s class is all the way on the other side of campus from the staffing apartments, and it’s evident that he isn’t feeling well today. That’s why Keith offers, “I can go get it for you.”  _

_ Shiro’s smile is instantaneous and relieved. He ruffles Keith’s hair. “You sure? It’s not going to get you out of solving quadratic equations.”  _

_ “There goes my diabolical plan,” Keith says, ducking away with a small smile. “Foiled once again. Give me the keys.”  _

_ Shiro gives Keith the keys. Keith lets himself out.  _

_ The Garrison is a surprisingly boring place after class hours, at least in this wing. It’s all stuffy old professors’ quarters and the occasional security guard patrolling to make sure none of the students have broken onto faculty property. So Keith’s trip across campus is quiet and dark, slipping in and out of elevators and turning down labyrinthine corridors that might as well be his migratory path by now. He doesn’t run into anyone on the way, and soon enough he’s unlocking the door of Shiro’s classroom and flicking on the lights. He makes his way over to Shiro’s desk and sure enough, his laptop is there, shut and tucked beneath his thick teacher’s guide textbook. Keith is grabbing them both (Shiro didn’t ask for it, but just in case) when he hears the classroom door click shut.  _

_ His heart stops, and that’s before he even looks up. Sure enough, it’s Sommers slinking into the room, hands in his pockets, easy smile in place. “What’re you doing here so late?” he says, voice silken and predatory.  _

_ “I could ask you the same,” Keith replies. His heart slams in his throat as Sommers approaches him, and he chances a single glance at the door before determining that there’s no way he’s going to be able to escape from this. Sommers is a lot bigger than him—smaller than Shiro, sure, but he’s a lot taller and more muscular than Keith’s fifteen-year-old scrawny ass. So he only has two options. He can fight and definitely lose, drag it out and inevitably make it worse by getting Sommers angry.  _

_ Or.  _

_ Keith swallows, throat tense as Sommers steps close enough into his space that he backs up instinctively until he bumps into the desk.  _ It’ll be fast,  _ he tries to tell himself, like that thought will comfort him. It doesn’t.  _

_ “I have to get back for dinner,” he tries anyway, “Shiro’ll wonder where I am.”  _

_ “That’s okay,” Sommers says agreeably. “I just wanted to . . . talk.”  _

_ “No you don’t,” Keith snaps, before he can help it. “You just want to fuck.” He braces his hand against the desk behind him, fighting the fear at what talking back is going to result in. But Sommers just laughs. The sound curls up like something evil in his stomach.  _

_ “You’re so smart,” he says, and the way he says it could almost be mistaken for admiration. “You know, I could tell when I looked at you that you’re more mature than your classmates. Prettier, too. Where’d Shirogane find you, again?”  _

_ “Save me the flattery.” Keith’s eyes dart helplessly to the clock. If he’s fast, he can get back before dinner and Shiro never has to know and he never has to get in trouble. “Just get it over with.”  _

_ He doesn’t want to be here. That’s the only thing he can think as hands he doesn’t know lift him up onto the desk, eyes going to the ceiling and trying to think of some place far, far away from here. But the most terrible thing, he thinks, is how the  _ Garrison  _ is supposed to be the faraway place.  _ This _ is supposed to be something in his past—this is why he ran away from San Diego with his tail tucked between his legs, praying that no one would catch him on the way out. He’s tried  _ so hard  _ to be careful. How did he mess up so badly  _ again? 

_ Isabella really was right. In some way or another, this is  _ always  _ going to follow them. He bites his lip and tries not to cry as Sommers reaches for the button on his jeans. Then the world blurs a little and Sommers is saying, “You’re such a gorgeous little thing,” and there’s revulsion speeding through his veins and— _

_ And someone behind Sommers goes: “What the actual  _ hell  _ is going on here?”  _

_ Relief and horror flood through Keith in equal measure:  _ Shiro. 

_ Keith fumbles to get his clothes back into place as Sommers turns, nonchalant and breezy as usual as he goes, “Ah, we’re just having a bit of fun. You know how it is.”  _

_ “No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Shiro says icily;  _ fuck,  _ he sounds mad, Keith worries. “Keith, come with me.”  _

_ Keith barely remembers to grab Shiro’s stuff on the way out. He practically flies out of the room, out of breath and flushed from shame as Shiro falls into step with him. “Shiro—” he tries, braving a glance at the man’s face, and it’s as unreadable as a blank wall. Keith feels like he’s going to throw up.  _

_ “We’ll talk when we’re back,” Shiro replies gruffly, and that sick feeling only grows.  _ He’s mad, he’s going to kick me out of the Garrison, he’s going to make me go back and my boyfriend’s going to _ kill  _ me, I’m going to  _ die—are the frantic thoughts swirling through Keith’s head, category five hurricane winds by the time Shiro opens the door of his apartment and steers Keith inside.  _

_ “What,” he starts, as soon as the door locks behind him, whirling around to face Keith. He’s  _ pissed. _ “Are you  _ thinking,  _ Keith? Getting into fights with students is one thing, but messing around with a teaching assistant in a classroom after hours? That’s  _ dangerous.  _ I can’t understand  _ what  _ would possess you into thinking it was a good idea to—”  _

_ “I’m  _ sorry,  _ Shiro,” Keith blurts, heart beginning to run away from him as he frantically tries to explain. “Look, I know it looks bad but I promise I’m not a slut, okay? I didn’t  _ want  _ to but he found me in the classroom and I didn’t tell him no because—because it’s just  _ easier  _ if I go along with it, no one ever listens when I say no and he was going to do it anyway and please don’t be mad, please don’t make me go back to the group home Shiro  _ please, I’m sorry please—” 

_ The longer Keith rambles, growing more and more hysterical with each plea, the more the anger bleeds out of Shiro’s face, replaced by something adjacent to horror. “Keith,” he says, abrupt, cutting him off in the middle of another distraught apology. “Keith, wait a minute, slow down. Hang on. Just so we’re clear—you didn’t  _ want  _ to be with Sommers in the classroom just now?”  _

_ “No.” Keith shakes his head until he’s almost dizzy. “No, Shiro, I didn’t, I’m sorry—”  _

_ “It’s okay,” Shiro says, and now his voice goes a blanketed sort of calm, the voice he uses when Keith is angry and he’s trying to talk him down. “But Keith, I have to ask you another question, and I need you to be honest, okay?” At Keith’s reluctant, miserable nod, he carefully says: “Has he made you do anything with him before?”  _

_ Keith darts his gaze away to the ceiling, to the floor, shakes his head. “Not . . . no. Not before today. But he—he flirts with me and I knew what he was doing but I thought if I ignored him he’d stop and I didn’t want to tell you because you’d be mad and I don’t—please don’t make me go back, Shiro. Please, I’m sorry, don’t be mad, please don’t make me go back to California please—” _

_ “Keith,” Shiro says again, firmly and steadily. “I am not going to send you back to California. But I have one more question.”  _

_ “Okay.” Keith feels like his lungs are collapsing. He feels like he’s five seconds away from crying and it’s only the fear of what will happen if he does that stops the tears from spilling.  _

_ “Not Sommers, but someone else . . . Has someone sexually assaulted you before?”  _

_ Green eyes are the first thing to flash up in Keith’s mind, and he slams the brakes on the memories before they can go any deeper. “Yeah,” he says roughly, bites his cheek until it bleeds and lets the pain distract him from the hard press of tears.  _

_ “Someone in California?”  _

_ Keith flicks his gaze back up to Shiro, betrayal stinging through the panic. “I thought you said only one more question.”  _

_ He watches Shiro as he puts away the questions, as he nods and says, “You’re right, I did. I’m sorry.” Slowly, like Keith is a feral cat that’ll easily startle, he steps close enough to gently pry away the laptop and the textbook that Keith didn’t even realize he was still clutching to his chest. “Go take a shower, okay?” Shiro gently tells him, “Adam and I will handle this.”  _

_ “Okay,” Keith hiccups, and then he turns and flees down the hall to do just that. He only feels marginally better when he emerges—there’s the press of  _ what if?  _ in his head and a sickness in his heart that won’t go away no matter how hard he tries to forget about it.  _

_ He never cares enough to ask how, but Shiro and Adam get Sommers fired. The new TA is a woman named Leah who passively does her work and never gives Keith a second glance. Things go back to normal for a while—but Keith never goes into another empty room without looking over his shoulder first.  _

  
  


_____

  
  


“What,” Keith says furiously, and slams down his holopad on the coffee table in the lounge, “the  _ hell  _ is this, Coran?” 

He is, of course, talking about the script for the latest episode of  _ The Voltron Show.  _ This episode: featuring  _ Paladins Keith and Lance and their universe-changing love affair.  _

Coran barely even glances up from his own holopad, where he’s typing away, undoubtedly already on the next episode. “Well, now that you and Lance are in a relationship, we  _ must  _ share that information with our viewers! You know how much pining and romance sells for these days. It will be  _ wonderful  _ for your image. The lone wolf Black Paladin leader and the flirtatious-but-sensitive Red Paladin Loverboy Lance? Can you imagine anything more perfect?” 

“Yes,” Keith snaps, unyielding. “Keeping our relationship  _ private.  _ I don’t care  _ how fucking much  _ you think we’ll  _ sell for, _ you are  _ not  _ publicizing my and Lance’s relationship. I won’t do it. You’ve already objectified us enough already. Find something else to write about.” 

But Coran just hums. It’s like he’s barely even  _ listening  _ to him. “Trust me, Keith, I know what I’m doing. This is what’s best for Voltron: your and Lance’s beautiful faces as the beacon of hope the universe needs. If your love can flourish during such calamitous times, surely anything is possible!” 

“Coran,” Keith says, and his voice nearly  _ cracks  _ from how desperate he is to have the man listen to him, “I’m trying to tell you that I’m  _ uncomfortable  _ with this. Please don’t make me do it.” 

And now the man looks up at him, but dismay settles into Keith’s heart before he even opens his mouth. His eyes are shining with that manic light that’s been there since he first started writing the show, the brightness that makes Keith feel shaky and uneasy. It’s like he can’t even see the desperation on Keith’s face when he tells him, “From what I can recall, you have all expressed discomfort in one way or another since the show began, but the others haven’t let that get in the way of the mission.” 

The remark hits like someone’s just dumped a bucket of ice-cold water on him. All of the blood drains out of Keith’s face. He turns and leaves the lounge without another word. 

It’s only later, blade locked with the gladiator, that Keith cools down enough to wonder if he’s overreacting. After all, Coran  _ is  _ right. They’ve all been uncomfortable throughout the show: Pidge with the fans and Allura with the  _ sheer _ amount of work and Hunk . . .  _ especially  _ Hunk. If anyone deserves an out from the show it’s him, but Hunk hasn’t threatened to quit just because he’s uncomfortable with  _ one _ episode. Keith doesn’t deserve special treatment just because he doesn’t  _ want  _ to do something. And what they’re doing, after all,  _ is  _ important; they’ve gained so many new coalition members, and at this rate they’ll definitely garner enough to overtake the Empire—but only if they all cooperate. 

_ You do not get special treatment.  _ Keith pulls himself together and logs out before Lance can come find him and see how long he’s been on the training deck. 

The thing is, he’s still rattled, and he knows Lance can tell later, when they’re lazily (or at least, on Keith’s part, attempted laziness) reading over lines in Lance’s room. Keith thinks he’s doing an okay job at pretending nothing is wrong—it is, after all, how he always acts around other people—but evidently he’s slipping up in a lot of ways today, because Lance lowers the holopad to give Keith this serious look and asks, “Okay, what’s up?” 

Keith unconsciously tenses. “What do you mean?” 

“I  _ mean . . .”  _ Lance hesitates, reaches across the space between them on the bed to settle a hand on Keith’s knee. “You seem really distracted about something, and you look upset. Something’s wrong. What is it?” 

Keith still tries to lie his way out of it. “I don’t know what you’re—” 

“Keith,” Lance says, with a look that almost stops Keith’s heart because of how  _ knowing  _ it is. “You don’t have to pretend with me. You can tell me anything.” 

_ I can’t,  _ Keith thinks, and bites his lip so there’ll be no chance it can escape. He looks down at his own holopad, fidgets with the case as he makes a reluctant decision. “Fine,” he says, and exhales slowly. His heart is pounding so insistently in his chest that he thinks when he opens his mouth again it’s going to leap out, but it doesn’t. “I . . .  _ hate _ this.” 

“Hate what?” Lance asks softly. There’s something  _ understanding  _ in his voice, though, like he already knows, and for a ridiculous, panicked moment, Keith wonders if he  _ does.  _ But that’s crazy, he thinks, because if Lance  _ knew,  _ he wouldn’t be here. If there was even the slightest chance that Lance had figured out something about him, he would’ve found some excuse to distance himself from him by now. Keith stares at Lance’s hand on his knee as he tries to carefully piece together an explanation without giving away too much. 

“The Voltron Show,” he finally, grudgingly admits. His nails bite into the holopad’s case. “The—the whole thing, but especially this episode. I don’t . . . I don’t  _ want  _ billions of people to see our relationship, Lance. I don’t like it.” 

“Okay,” Lance says easily—as if it’s that simple, “then we won’t do it.” 

Keith shakes his head. “No—it’s not—it’s  _ fine.  _ I’m just being overdramatic about it, but I’ll get over it. Anyway, I already talked to Coran, and he said we have to. And I understand, you know? Like we . . . sometimes we have to do things we aren’t comfortable with, for Voltron. It’s okay.” 

Lance inhales a little too sharply. When Keith looks up at him, his eyes are roaming over Keith’s face searchingly. “Coran said that to you?” he carefully asks, but there’s a tell-tale tension in his jaw and Keith’s heart glitches as he realizes he somehow messed  _ that  _ up, and now he has to do damage control. 

“Look, don’t get mad at him the way you got mad at Shiro. I can  _ handle  _ being told the truth. I know I’ve been weird lately, but I’m not going to fall apart over one stupid episode.” 

“But it’s . . . not just one episode,” Lance puts together, eyes still searching. “You hate the—the whole show? You’ve been uncomfortable, this whole time, with the show.” 

Keith just shrugs. He’s uncomfortable now, he doesn’t say. He’s always uncomfortable, but he’s learned to live with it. “We all are, aren’t we? I mean, even  _ you  _ don’t like  _ The Voltron Show  _ because of how it treats Hunk. It makes you angry, too.” 

“Well, yeah, but—babe,” Lance sighs, and Keith feels a little prickle of anxiety before he can get control of his brain.  _ He’s upset—he’s frustrated.  _ “Do you remember when you told me, on Yuu’conia, that you guys would never make me do something if it made me uncomfortable and I didn’t want to?” 

“Well, yeah,” Keith mirrors Lance’s own words. “It was like, a week ago.” 

“So . . .” Lance squeezes Keith’s knee, and Keith focuses for a moment on the warmth that’s cascading into his skin even through his jeans. “Why do you think we wouldn’t treat you the same? If you don’t  _ want  _ to do something, why do you think you have to?” 

It’s harder to come up with an answer for this one. Keith abandons his grip on the holopad entirely, fixates his attention instead on tracing over the veins of Lance’s hand with his fingertips. “Because I . . . because it’s different for me, Lance. I—I’ve messed up lately,  _ a lot.  _ I don’t want to let you guys down again—that’s  _ worse _ than the show. So . . . so, it doesn’t  _ matter  _ if I don’t want to do it, because I will. For you guys. You’re more important than my discomfort.” 

“Keith . . . hey, could you look at me for a second?” There’s a quiet sort of urgency in Lance’s voice, so Keith does it, and he finds the same urgency darkening the blue pools of his eyes. “We  _ all  _ know how much you care about us. We feel the same way about you. If . . . if one of us felt the way you are right now, would you tell us that our feelings don’t matter?” 

Self-horror flickers to life in him at the mere thought of someone else feeling like him. “Of course not. Lance, you know I wouldn’t.” 

“Exactly. I know that. Which is why I  _ also  _ know that it’s the same for you. How you feel  _ matters  _ to us. We’re not going to get mad at you for it, or whatever it is you’re afraid of. You don’t . . . you don’t have to  _ prove _ anything to us.” 

_ Maybe it’s not you that I’m trying to prove something to.  _ Keith bites his tongue and shifts his weight, and suddenly the gentleness in Lance’s voice is  _ too  _ much. He wants to talk about something else. 

“Can we just—drop it? It’s not as big a deal as you’re making it into. I can handle this,” he says, and now his own eyes scan Lance’s face, trying to make sure he understands. _I’m fine. I don’t need you to try to fix this._

But there’s this conflicted look that might as well be engraved on Lance’s face, for all that it budges at Keith’s attempt at assurance. So Keith sighs and shifts into his space so that he can wrap his arms around him, hugs him tightly and tells him, “Thanks, Lance. It means a lot that you care so much. But you really don’t have to worry about me, okay? I’m fine.” 

Lance lets out a quiet huff of air as he reciprocates the hug, hands coming up to rest over the blades of his shoulders. “I’m your boyfriend,” he says softly, “Worrying about you is supposed to be in the job description.” 

_ Is it?  _ Another thing that Keith won’t ask or say. He rests his chin on Lance’s shoulder and lets him play with his hair and imagines that he can’t feel the chasm opening up between them with every lie he tells. One of these days, it’s either going to rip them apart, or they’re going to fall right into it. He doesn’t want to know which one it’s going to be. He doesn’t know which one would be worse. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Docking the castleship on the planet Plex-007 instills the same kind of feeling in Keith as the sound of his bedroom door locking from the outside in the Camdens’ house. The same desperate loneliness, the agonizing pain of isolation. It’s ridiculous, he tells himself.  _ You aren’t ten years old. Stop acting like it.  _

But Keith feels small, shaking hands when the Plexan president, smiling and pretending he doesn’t want to jump out of his skin. The Plexan leader has long nails, filed to sharp points, and he has to physically force down the rise of bile in his throat. He’s still trying to subtly wipe his hand on his pants under the table halfway through dinner. 

Expensive alien wine is poured and Keith drinks a glass of it because he’s quickly beginning to realize he’s not going to make it through tonight completely sober. They’re scheduled to perform later this evening and Keith dreads it more and more with every tick that passes. The wine is a strange union of cloyingly sweet and unpleasantly bitter, but he keeps sipping at it, fighting not to make faces as the president drones on about their economic crisis in the wake of regaining control of their planet. 

Something flickers in the corner of his vision; catching his attention, Keith shifts his gaze over to the doorway. He’s just able to make out a flash of blond hair before the apparition vanishes beneath the archway into the shadows, and a blanket of anger settles over him.  _ This, again?  _

“Excuse me,” Keith murmurs, quietly pushing back from the table. It draws attention; Lance, sitting next to him, snags onto his sleeve and lowly asks, “Are you okay?” Keith forces a smile and a nod. 

“Just need some air.” 

“Let me come with you,” Lance offers, but he shakes his head before he even finishes. 

“I’ll be fine on my own,” he says, “I’ll be back in a minute.” After another hesitant beat, Lance lets him go. Keith hears someone asking about his departure, hears Lance’s calm, upbeat response, and then he’s made it through the doorway and everything except for him goes still. 

The hall is considerably dark, illuminated by small lights pulsing in sconces high above his head, and the floor shines beneath his feet like polished pebbles of obsidian. Keith squints into the distance, noting a flash of movement turning a corner up ahead, but then he’s distracted by someone exiting a corridor right in front of him. Keith barely stops before he bumps into them, hand flying out instinctively to steady them. “I’m so sorry,” he begins, only to be stopped by the Plexan’s wide-eyed stare. 

“Paladin Keith,” they stammer, both hands bracing around the tray they carry. It’s then that Keith realizes they’re a waiter, and he scans the floor quickly to make sure he hadn’t caused them to accidentally spill or drop something. 

“Yeah. Are you alright?” he asks, and the waiter nods, still appearing startled. 

“Can you point me to a door that leads outside? This place is a maze,” Keith says, and the waiter hastily babbles out directions and gestures with one tentacle-like arm. Keith nods and thanks them, but before he can begin walking again the waiter calls out, “Wait. Would you like one?” 

They proffer the tray of goblets they’re carrying. More wine. Keith hesitates for only a moment, but the waiter looks at him so imploringly that that alone probably would have convinced him to take one just out of politeness. “Thank you,” he says again as he picks one up from the tray, and the waiter beams before rushing off to the dining room. Keith continues on his way, periodically sipping at the sweetly foul drink and not bothering to hide his grimaces. Who’s going to see him? 

Finally he makes it outside, spilling out into a courtyard cobbled in the same dark stone as the floors inside the palace. He lifts his face up to the dusty, golden sky, and for a moment the color reminds him of someone. Someone that he won’t name. The color green flashes in his field of vision and for a moment he thinks it’s just the tall hedges that grow along the courtyard’s perimeter, except the hedges here are a deep red color. And then he blinks, backs up, and  _ sure enough— _

He’s angry enough that it cancels out the fear and annoyed enough to not shrivel up into himself. He takes another sip of wine and spits out, “What do you  _ want?”  _

Here’s a smile that’s long-since stopped trying to appeal to Keith with flattery: he’s as feral as a lion. Keith is tired. “Why is it that I always have to want something?” he says. 

“I don’t know. You tell me.” Keith knocks back the rest of his drink and then laments at the goblet’s new emptiness. He isn’t very drunk yet, but he kind of hopes he’ll get there soon. He’d hate to have to go back inside and request another one. That probably wouldn’t look good to the Plexan president. “Aren’t visual hallucinations supposed to go away when you snap your fingers?” He snaps his fingers in front of his face. Nothing happens. 

_ He  _ snorts. “Don’t know what psychology textbook you were reading, Keith. Looks like you’re stuck with me, huh? I thought you’d be happier about that.” 

Keith starts walking, because there’s nothing else to do; maybe he’ll follow and maybe he won’t, but it’ll at least give Keith something else to focus on. “I’m going crazy, aren’t I,” he thinks aloud. He thinks it must be true, because for all the times he’s heard whispers and seen shadows before, it’s only  _ recently  _ that they’ve started materializing into something corporeal.  _ He _ looks as real and alive as he did the last time Keith saw him, even though he’s a frozen image. The boy beside him is forever glaciated at nineteen. 

It’s strange, Keith muses, how he can be older than his last memory of him, and yet he’s  _ still  _ so affected by him every single day. It doesn’t make any kind of sense. 

“Well, I always  _ did  _ make you crazy, didn’t I?”  _ he  _ says, with a flashing, wicked grin of amusement that sinks something sick into the pit of Keith’s stomach. 

“You aren’t funny.” 

“Never claimed to be. I’m just speaking the truth. The whole truth.  _ Nothing but the truth.”  _

Keith wants another glass of wine  _ so  _ badly. He wants to stab the ghost beside him with his Galra blade until he evaporates into nothing or draws blood as red as the artistically-cut bushes. Whichever image his brain conjures up would be fine by him. But his dagger stays tucked at his back and he makes no move to pull it out. 

He blinks, and when he opens his eyes again he’s on the castleship. He has absolutely no recollection of how he got there, but he thinks offhandedly that he’s glad they docked the castle planetside here, because Shiro would  _ kill  _ him if he flew one of the lions under the influence. “That would be like a . . . LUI, right?” he says to no one. “Lion under the influence. Or maybe FUI, for flying. Guess that would make more sense.” 

“Does anything you say ever make sense?” Oh,  _ he’s  _ still here, Keith realizes, as he’s fumbling in the kitchen for something. _ What am I looking for, again?  _

“Nunvil,” the voice helpfully supplies. Keith’s hand closes around the bottle and he emerges from the cabinet to step back over to the counter where he’d set down the Plexan goblet. He’s probably going to have to return that, he thinks, but he’s already unscrewing the lid of the bottle to pour it in. 

“This stuff is nasty,” Keith says, frowning to himself as he wonders why exactly he plans on drinking it, then. But then  _ he  _ says, “Worse than the stuff I used to give you?” and he remembers. 

“Nothing’s worse than that,” he tells him, “because  _ you  _ were the one giving it to me.” He drains the entire goblet’s worth of Nunvil and winces at the burn of it. 

“You used to be so easy,” his ex-boyfriend notes lightly, and again, anger clenches its powerful fist in Keith’s stomach. He slams down the empty chalice and throws the words from nights and years ago back at him: “Not anymore. I can prove it,  _ easily.”  _

A single lift of an eyebrow. “I’d like to see you try.” 

Keith is barely aware of himself, moments later, punching in the access code for the training deck; shrugging out of his formalwear jacket and unsheathing his knife from his back. The gladiator is as willing and able to fight as ever, and even through the swimming colors in his mind Keith thinks:  _ here’s something I can win. Here’s how I can prove that I’m  _ better,  _ now. I’m not weak anymore. I will  _ never _ be weak again.  _

Here’s his blade, clanging discordantly against the gladiator’s staff. Humorless laughter choking in his throat as he swings it again, spinning away and losing his footing. For a heart-stopping moment he thinks he’s going to fall, but he regains his balance in time to block the next hit. The ghost who was with him in the courtyard and the kitchen hadn’t followed him here, and it’s such a  _ blessed  _ relief. It is completely,  _ consumingly  _ quiet aside from the clatter of metal and the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. No one is screaming. The silence is  _ bliss.  _

But then there’s a brief pause as the sequence finishes, as the gladiator bumps up to the next level, and his vision flickers as he sways on his feet. When he looks up again, the gladiator’s face has changed. Suddenly, this isn’t fun anymore. It’s a fight for his  _ life.  _

Keith backs up, fresh panic beginning to beat from his heart through his veins.  _ This is where the real battle begins, isn’t it?  _ he thinks, and it must be, because he wanted a fair fight, and  _ here it is.  _

Primarily, it’s  _ his  _ face, but with every strike the image flickers like a hologram, and his reward for each thwarted blow is a memory of something else unspooling. Red smiles; cool, unfeeling eyes. An unnameable Galra enemy on a ship and a face buried so deep in his past that he can’t even  _ remember  _ anything beyond the first honeyed smile he’d ever been fed. There’s even  _ Sommers,  _ for a moment, a flicker of his face before it’s shrouded once again beneath his ex-boyfriend’s, and with a violent, blood-freezing scream Keith is kicking out against the hands that reach for him, striking with own his hands and his knees and his blade into anything he can reach: shoulders, stomachs, the side of a head,  _ anything, anything  _ to help him get the upper hand,  _ anything _ to keep him from losing. He’s  _ screaming  _ and metal is clanging so  _ loudly  _ in his head like the booming of someone’s heart, or a fist banging on a door—

“Just  _ STOP. Stop, STOP,  _ why are you still here, this is supposed to be  _ OVER,  _ it’s supposed to be over,  _ why _ are you.  _ Still. HERE?”  _ Keith screams, and he’s on the ground with no recollection of how he got there, slamming his blade repeatedly into the chest of whoever it is beneath him—he doesn’t even  _ know,  _ it’s all a blur, does it matter? They’re all the  _ fucking same— _ but the faces keep flashing and he’s so  _ angry  _ so he keeps bringing the knife down, again and again and  _ again and— _

“Keith! Keith, stop, you have to  _ stop,”  _ someone shouts, and Keith doesn’t know who it is or where they are but he doesn’t listen. He lifts his knife again and—it’s—

Plucked out of his hand, someone is saying over his head, “Keith, you have to calm down, you have to take a deep breath, do you know where you are?” and panic lances through Keith’s chest because he’s  _ weaponless  _ and maybe he doesn’t know where he is but he knows being defenseless is  _ bad,  _ and his hands are shaking but he still tries to curl them into fists because they’re all he has  _ left _ and—

“Keith, it’s me. It’s  _ Shiro,  _ it’s me, I’m here. I’m  _ here,”  _ that voice says again, and Keith goes suddenly, breathlessly still. 

“Shiro?” he says, childishly small, and someone exhales in what might be relief. Familiar hands reach out to lift him away from the wreckage; it’s only when Shiro is holding his limp form on his lap that Keith blinks his eyes open onto the scene in front of him. And it’s a ghastly, horrific sight: the gladiator is  _ shredded.  _ It’s mechanical chest is torn open, stray bits of wire sparking and spilling out. The light in its eyes is completely dead. One of its arms is almost entirely ripped off. 

The gladiator is supposed to be indestructible. Allura said so herself. 

“I did that?” he asks, horrified and feeling smaller with every passing moment. Nausea is trying to climb up his throat and he bites it back, gasps, “Shiro—Shiro did I  _ do that?”  _

“Yeah, buddy,” Shiro quietly tells him. “You did.” 

“I’m sorry.” And suddenly Keith is fighting back tears  _ again.  _ When is he  _ ever  _ going to grow up? “I didn’t mean to.” 

He slumps against Shiro’s chest, defeated as his eyes fall shut. “I can’t do  _ The Voltron Show  _ anymore, can I?” he says. He doesn’t care very much. 

“No,” Shiro tells him, and even though he doesn’t  _ care,  _ his chest still prickles with guilt. It still feels like a death sentence when Shiro says: “You can’t.” 

  
  


_____

  
  


It’s the  _ worst  _ night. 

Everything is hazy: Keith fades in and out of images of hands on skin and voices in his ear and  _ pressure  _ and  _ screaming  _ and he’s in  _ hell.  _ And in between, there’s Shiro: tying Keith’s hair back from his face as he vomits for the third time since he carried him back to his room, holding him through the bouts of pure  _ panic  _ that leave him unable to breathe, trying to soothe him, trying to get him to drink water, trying to tell him, “You’re here, you’re with me, you’re  _ okay—”  _

But—“I’m  _ not,”  _ Keith shudders, “Shiro I’m not, I’m not I’m not I’m  _ not,”  _ and so his brother doesn’t try to tell him again that he is. He just holds him until Keith has to throw up what little water Shiro was able to coax into his system, and then he breaks down again. 

There’s one point in the middle of the night when Shiro’s in the bathroom that there’s a knock on his door, and then it opens and Allura is there in the doorway and Keith flies back against his headboard in his dizzied panic to get away from her. “Get  _ out,”  _ he gasps, “Get out, please,  _ please  _ get out,” and she just stands there, frozen in shock until Shiro rushes out of the bathroom to see what’s happened and quickly close the door on her again. Keith’s heart doesn’t calm down for another hour after that. He passes out from sheer exhaustion sometime in the hours that could be either extremely late at night or very, very early in the morning, and he wakes up with his head on Shiro’s shoulder and the overwhelming  _ need  _ to throw up again. 

_ This  _ is a hangover, Keith thinks, as he sits on his knees on the floor of his bathroom and Shiro presses a couple of pills and more water into his hands. He feels like he’s dead and wishes that he was. And he remembers every single detail of the night before. 

“Shiro,” he says, voice  _ wrecked,  _ “I’m sorry.” 

Shiro doesn’t say anything to him for a long moment, and Keith wants to cry.  _ He’s mad. He’s so mad.  _

His brother stares for a long time at the place on his wall where the mirror used to be and only fragmented shards remain, and Keith’s entire body flushes hot with shame. “Shiro—” he tries again. Shiro doesn’t let him finish. 

“We’re having a team meeting as soon as you think you can walk from here to the dining hall. Drink your water, Keith.” 

Keith does as he’s told, misery and dread growing into a balloon in his chest and pressing into his lungs. Everything  _ hurts,  _ and it just gets worse when he thinks about how he’s going to have to face  _ everyone. _ Shiro wasn’t the only person to find him on the training deck last night. And he doesn’t know how  _ much  _ they saw last night, but it was definitely  _ enough. _ The ruined gladiator speaks for itself. 

_ What am I going to tell them?  _ he thinks, panicked, and then:  _ what if Shiro already  _ told  _ them?  _ “Shiro, what did you tell them?” he asks around the lump of  _ awful  _ in his throat. Shiro just looks at him, pained and exhausted, and says, “Nothing. I haven’t kept your secrets for six years just to get you out of telling the others the truth. You can do that yourself.” 

It’s almost worse than if he  _ had  _ told them. 

Everyone is already there by the time Keith works himself up to get off the floor and show his face. And it’s as awful as he expected it to be, if not worse—four pairs of exhausted, worried eyes look up the minute the doors open. Coran isn’t there, he notices blearily; Lance stands up to pull out his chair for him, looking more distraught than all the rest. His eyes are red like he spent most of the night crying. Another stab of guilt pierces his heart. 

“Lance, I—” he tries, his voice cracking immediately. His boyfriend shakes his head, pulls him into his arms and just holds him for a long minute. 

“I’m so sorry,” Lance whispers, and Keith shakes his head, because he doesn’t understand what he could possibly be apologizing for. Then he pulls away, regret on his face, and Keith’s heart sinks as he glances around and sees the same look on everyone else’s. 

“You’re kicking me off the team, aren’t you?” 

Oddly, now that it’s happening, Keith finds that he’s finally found the mute button to his interminable fear and panic over the situation.  _ It’s only a matter of time  _ becomes  _ it’s time,  _ and all Keith can feel over the situation is a detached grief, like he’s watching someone else mourn the death of someone he never met. 

But then Lance shakes his head again, too quickly, almost frantic. “No, Keith, that’s not it, we’re not—we’re not kicking you off the team.” 

“Then what?” Keith whispers. Lance pulls away completely with a deep breath, settles a hand onto Keith’s shoulder, and moves him to sit down. 

“We’re not—Lance is right, Keith,” Allura begins, halts, her too-bright lavender-turquoise eyes falling heavily on Keith as he sits and wraps his hands around a mug of tea. “No matter what, you aren’t going  _ anywhere.  _ But we need an explanation. And we . . . the rest of us, last night, came to an agreement.” 

“And what was that?” Keith tiredly asks. 

“We want you to take a break, Keith. Sit down from training and battles, from . . . from  _ Voltron . . .  _ just for a little while.” 

Keith stares blankly at the table. “What about that isn’t kicking me off the team?” 

“You are still family,” Allura says calmly. “You will still be here. And whatever is going on, you will let us  _ help you.” _

“You can’t,” Keith whispers. “And anyway, even if you could, I doubt you’d want to.” 

“That’s not true,” Lance abruptly says. His eyes, when Keith glances at him, are filled with  _ visceral  _ anguish. “Keith, we  _ love you.  _ We don’t want you to hurt like this. You have to  _ trust us.” _

It hurts too much to look at him. Keith returns his gaze to his tea, presses his fingertips to the porcelain and feels the way it’s hot enough to nearly burn, but not quite. He doesn’t say anything. 

“Keith, what happened last night?” Allura asks him. He shrugs. 

“Guess I had a little too much wine,” he says dryly. 

“We found the empty Nunvil bottle in the kitchen. You  _ obliterated  _ the Gladiator. You . . . you were a  _ wreck.  _ That is not the consequence of drinking  _ a little too much.  _ Something happened.” 

_ “Nothing  _ happened,” Keith argues. “I just—I had a bad night, okay? Can we just not talk about it and move on?” 

Allura’s face tenses, a certain resignation settling in her eyes when she sees that Keith isn’t going to give her anything more. “There’s something else.” 

_ Of course there is.  _ “What?” 

Her jaw ticks. “We took your hand recognition out of the training deck’s database and changed the passcodes. You aren’t permitted to train alone anymore.” 

Keith tenses, the first flare of any kind of emotion firing in his chest— _ distress. They don’t trust you anymore.  _ “What— _ why?  _ It was . . . it was  _ one  _ bad night! I didn’t even get hurt.” 

Allura flicks her gaze between Keith and Lance, and Keith turns on his boyfriend, betrayal joining the distress. “Lance?” 

Lance bites his lip. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, voice crackling, “She—she looked at the logs, Keith. She saw all the hours you’d put in and . . . and wondered why an incident hadn’t happened before,” he whispers. 

“And you told her it had,” Keith finishes dully. He can’t be mad at him for it: Lance looks  _ so  _ distraught, and Keith wouldn’t be able to spare the energy even if he wanted to. 

“But that—that’s not the same thing,” he protests, shaking his head. “Allura, you  _ can’t  _ do this—it’s not  _ fair—”  _

_ “Fair?”  _ Shiro demands, speaking up out of his stony silence. Everyone looks at him; he’s sitting on the other side of the table by Hunk, his hand clenched so tightly around his own mug of tea that Keith wonders how it hasn’t cracked yet. “You want to talk about what’s  _ fair?  _ What about  _ us?  _ When you’re out on the training deck letting yourself get  _ hurt  _ because you would rather fight alone than trust a  _ single  _ one of us with one of your problems, how do you think that makes us feel? How do you think it made  _ Lance  _ feel, keeping your secrets for you? Do you think  _ that  _ was a fair thing to ask him to do?” 

“Shiro—” Lance tries, but Keith’s brother shakes his head, mouth tense, eyes flaming. He stands, chair pushing back so he can brace himself on the table, attention solely fixed on Keith. 

“You’re  _ dying,”  _ he tells him, no words minced, none of his feelings on the matter held back. He’s angry, and frustrated, and  _ hurt,  _ and Keith feels every bit of it like the punch that it is. “Every single fucking day you keep these things to yourself you’re pushing yourself closer and  _ closer  _ to the edge, and I  _ can’t watch you do it anymore.  _ You aren’t the only person with something to  _ lose, _ Keith,” Shiro all but shouts, running a frustrated hand through his hair, voice cracking when he bursts, “You’re the only family I have too, you know. I need you _ just as much _ as you need me. You have to  _ stop  _ this.” 

“I’m  _ trying!”  _ And now Keith jumps up, too, because he  _ refuses  _ to be talked down to, his own words breaking and cracking like snapping tree limbs in a forest fire, “I’m  _ trying  _ to be better Shiro, I’ve been trying for  _ years,  _ can’t you see that I’m doing my  _ best  _ with what I’ve been given? I’m  _ trying—”  _

_ “But not anything that will actually work,”  _ Shiro flings out, words almost stinging in their acid coating, and Keith would maybe be a little terrified if he wasn’t so  _ devastated.  _ “What’s it going to take to get you to  _ talk  _ to someone? To  _ anyone— _ me, or Allura, or Lance or  _ Black  _ or  _ somebody?  _ How much do we have to do to  _ prove _ to you that you can  _ trust us?  _ What do you  _ want  _ from us?” 

_ “Nothing,  _ I don’t want  _ anything  _ from you Shiro, just—” 

“Just  _ what?”  _

“I just want to go  _ HOME,”  _ Keith cries, “I just want to go  _ home  _ to the desert and my  _ dad _ and I want to  _ sleep _ until I  _ fucking die,  _ and you can’t  _ give me that  _ so just leave it  _ ALONE.”  _

Shiro’s face goes as blank and pale as a sheet of paper while everyone around the table freezes. And there’s Keith at the center of this complete and total  _ wreck, _ trembling so hard that it’s a miracle his hands can even hold him up, and he’s so  _ tired  _ and he hurts  _ so much  _ and he feels so  _ small,  _ and  _ all he wants _ is for someone to take him and hold him and put back the pieces of himself that were taken away when he was too young and defenseless to fight for them—but all of those things that should have been  _ his  _ are long gone. He  _ can’t  _ have them back, and nothing else can  _ ever  _ replace them. 

He’s always wanted more than he deserves. He’s always needed more than he can have. 

“I—I’m sorry,” Shiro whispers, and his face is so heavy with regret and confliction and for a moment as he looks at him Keith  _ hopes— _

Shiro shakes his head, backs away from the table and throws up his hands as he says, “I can’t—I can’t  _ be here,”  _ and he turns and Keith watches his brother walk away from him and feels like his heart is  _ shattering _ for the millionth time in his life. 

_ You are not enough. You will never be good enough,  _ whispers in his mind, and he knows it’s right, so he can’t even bother the part of himself that manufactures tears to try to go into overtime. He’s all out of resources, finally losing the strength to stand on his own two feet. He slumps back into his chair and buries his head in his hands, feels someone’s hand settle supportively on his back—knows it’s Lance without having to look—but he can’t be bothered to feel much of anything towards the gesture. He just wants to  _ sleep,  _ and maybe he wants to die and maybe he doesn’t but in this moment, surrounded by his silent friends and the weight of  _ everything  _ beginning to truly crash down on him, all he can do is think that he wishes he was already dead. 

  
  


_____

  
  


It’s that night that Lance shuffles into his room with all of his bedding piled up in his arms, blocking his face from Keith’s view as he lowers the holopad from his face and squints. “What are you doing,” he says. 

Lance drops the entire pile onto the floor and goes to work doing whatever the hell he’s doing. “When Allura said she doesn’t want you to be by yourself anymore, she meant sleeping too, Keith.” 

“Right. I know that.” Keith tiredly reaches up to rub his eyes with the palms of his hands. He feels like he’s been put under  _ house arrest— _ that’s pretty much what this is, anyway. “Doesn’t explain why you’re making a nest on my floor.” 

Lance keeps his attention on unfolding blankets and arranging pillows as he says, like it should be obvious, “This is where I’m going to sleep.” 

Keith bites his lip. “Why can’t you sleep up here?” He  _ hates  _ how clingy he sounds, but he’s not going to make his boyfriend sleep on the floor. This is the same boy who can’t sleep without an eye mask and a certain thread count to his sheets. He can’t add  _ that  _ much more strain to the order  _ he’s  _ disrupted by forcing him to be uncomfortable on top of everything else. 

Lance stills. “Do you want me to?” 

There’s something Keith doesn’t like about the way he asks the question; he ignores the uncertainty in his own heart and says, “Why wouldn’t I want you to?” 

He  _ definitely  _ doesn’t like the shadow that passes over Lance’s face when he looks at him. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he says seriously, “and you aren’t going to like it. You’ll probably be really, really mad at me for it.” 

That uncertainty solidifies into something sick in his chest. He doesn’t spend a lot of time wondering what Lance could be talking about; he’s too  _ tired.  _ “Then don’t tell me.” 

Bewilderment keeps Lance frozen. “What?” 

_ “Don’t _ tell me,” Keith repeats. He lays back, eyes flicking unseeingly to the ceiling. “Lance, today has been awful enough as it is. Whatever it is you have to tell me, however bad it is . . . it can wait. I don’t  _ care— _ I don’t think I can handle anything else, right now. I just want you to come up here and hold me for a while. That’s  _ all  _ I want.” 

Lance can’t fix him. Keith knows that. But he watches him internally debate something for only a moment longer before making up his mind; he comes to bed and climbs over Keith to rest against the wall, settling his own pillow down beside Keith’s. And then he curls an arm over Keith’s waist, pulls him tightly against his chest, and he closes his eyes and tells himself that it’s  _ enough  _ and tries to take comfort in the fact that Lance will still be here when he wakes up. 

_ But for how much longer?  _ that awful,  _ hated  _ voice inside of him whispers, and he tells it to shut  _ up,  _ fights against the burn in his eyes and listens instead to the sound of Lance’s breathing until he loses himself to the pull of unconsciousness. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_ Keith is aware of what’s happening within mere seconds of waking up.  _

_ There’s heavy breathing in his ear and there are hands on him, undoubtedly to keep him there in the rare event he tries to fight back. He doesn’t; he squeezes his eyes shut again and waits, anger and despair and horror shooting through his veins as he bites his tongue and imagines there’s a place where he can go to sleep and wake up and  _ not  _ have his boyfriend on top of him. Or have  _ anyone _ on top of him for that matter. He used to hate sleeping alone, but waking up to someone is unspeakably worse.  _

_“What the hell, Alex?” he whispers harshly the minute he’s off him, sitting up and bracing himself on the side of the couch with a weak glare. A glance to the side shows his textbooks still open on the coffee table; he fell asleep studying in the living room. Which just makes this entire_ _thing_ that _much more unbelievable. “Your_ mom _could have come in. Your_ little sister _is down the hall.”_

_ “Madelyn’s out like a light. I checked on her when I came in. It’s fine.” He grins naturally, like this is something to be commended for, and Keith’s stomach is churning up a  _ storm  _ in his stomach. He shakes his head, a rare burst of fury making itself apparent as he stands on slightly-weak knees, ignores the little stabs of pain that come from  _ everywhere  _ as he gathers up his pajama pants from where they wound up at the other end of the couch. He doesn’t think about how they got there.  _

_ “Whatever. I’m going to shower.  _ You  _ can clean up your mess or explain it to your mother in the morning,” is the only thing he says, a whisper-shout over his shoulder before he carries himself upstairs and locks himself in the bathroom.  _

_ He turns the water to the highest possible temperature, peels his T-shirt over his head and dumps it in the hamper with his pajama pants, and he doesn’t cry until he’s sitting beneath the shower’s steady stream, curling his knees into his chest and ignoring the way the water falls like droplets of fire onto his skin. When he does cry, it’s silent: tears slipping unacknowledged down the drain until they run out. Then he pulls himself back together, turns the shower off, and changes into a fresh set of clothes.  _

_ His boyfriend is already asleep by the time Keith comes to bed, settling down at the far end of it and turning on his side to face away from him. He curls up into himself and stares blankly at the wall until he has no choice but to give in to the exhaustion tugging at his mind. And anyway, Keith doesn’t have time to stay up hurting over how nightmarish his life is. He has a test in the morning.  _

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith wakes on a sharp inhale, eyes flying open as he stares unseeingly across the room to the shut doors of his closet. There’s an arm settled around him and he tenses, hand instinctively inching up to his pillow until his brain locks onto the clean, familiar scent of Lance’s body wash and freezes in horror. 

He carefully slides himself out from under Lance’s arm, glancing down to look at him, to make sure he’s still sleeping soundly as he slips away and into the bathroom. Then he locks the door, turns the shower on, and scrubs every inch of his skin until it  _ burns.  _

Lance is sitting up in bed when he emerges, eyes wide, worried blue in the dark. “What’s wrong?” he asks, and Keith’s throat aches from the strain of his suppressed sobs, but he shakes his head and climbs back into bed and pulls Lance down with him so he can rest his head on his shoulder. 

“Nothing,” he whispers, and breathes in  _ clean  _ and  _ sweet  _ and  _ good,  _ and tries to go back to sleep. 

In the morning, he tells Lance to go on to breakfast ahead of him, and Lance hesitates for only a moment before he grudgingly agrees. Keith won’t take long; he waits until the door closes behind him, counts for half a minute just in case Lance comes back, and when he’s sure he’s really alone, he draws out the blade he always keeps beneath his pillow when he sleeps—the blade that he  _ can’t afford  _ to keep beneath his pillow, anymore. 

There’s a box he keeps in the corner of his closet, filled with miscellaneous items that he’s held onto throughout the years but rarely ever uses or needs. He crouches to take it out, drops the sheathed knife inside, and replaces the lid without looking at it. He returns the box to its place in the closet, firmly shuts the doors, and goes to breakfast. 


	9. drawn completely from memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I didn’t want to do it.” 
> 
> The whisper is stolen by his tongue before his head can process it—confessed in shuddering, barely-heard words. _I didn't want to. I didn't want to._ He could be talking about any aspect of his life and it would still fit. He didn’t ask for any of _this._ He never wanted this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back with more angst, and this just reached 3k today, which is insane to me?? thank you guys so much?? i have more to ramble about that in the end notes lol, but for now, ah, it's time to dive right into the serious stuff. 
> 
> IMPORTANT:  
> this chapter contains a pretty graphic scene of a suicide attempt. if that's a trigger for you, or you're sensitive to it or uncomfortable with it in any way, i highly advise you and ask you to skip it. i felt it was too important to keith's story to just completely leave out, but it's also not so important that you'll really miss anything or won't understand what's going on if you skip it. if you opt not to read it, skip past the scene that directly follows the sentence: "He isn't sure if it means anything at all," to the linebreak after the next scene ends. or you can ctrl f to "Keith is crying when he wakes up." there's also discussion of suicide in the scenes before and after, just so you know it's there. stay safe, guys <3
> 
> also (not as important): chapter titles of both this and ch. 8 come from "kuroi ledge" by a lot like birds. it's a devastating song that i think identifies a lot with both keith and isabella in this fic, and it's a masterpiece in general that i 10/10 recommend listening to.

Keith is at the back of the group when Coran comes to. 

The medbay looks a lot different when Keith isn’t the one who needs medical attention. It’s something he’s always been hyperaware of—it always cuts him much more deeply when it’s Lance who’s hurt, or Hunk, or _Pidge—_ but standing beneath the too-bright lights, arms crossed tightly against his chest like he’s trying to physically keep his emotions trapped there, it all feels like too much.

Because there’s Coran: someone they’ve all relied on, in one way or another, since they came to space; their infallible support system and _friend,_ who has _always_ been there for them. But when _he_ was the one who needed something from them, they failed to see it. And Keith knows, in the same way he knows the familiar sickness in his chest, why.

You _knew something was wrong,_ a quiet, needling voice reminds him, and it brings with it this blanket of prickling guilt, because it’s _true._ Keith had _known_ something was off with Coran, but he hadn’t said anything. All he had cared about was putting as much distance between himself and the Altean as possible, because _he_ was uncomfortable. He’s been so wrapped up in his own head, and he dragged everyone else into it, and they’re all just _lucky_ that Bi-Boh-Bi figured out something was wrong and fixed it before something awful happened to Coran. 

(Well, more awful. Keith supposes that getting possessed by a Hollywood-director brainworm is bad enough in itself.) 

“Well, it’s over now,” Allura is saying, sighing in relief as she settles a hand onto her uncle’s shoulder. “I am just glad that you are alright.”

“Indeed.” Coran, in spite of everything, already looks like he’s settling back into his normal self. There’s an easy, relaxed smile on his face, even though his eyes are dark with something subdued when he turns his gaze on each of the paladins. He waits until he’s landed on Keith to say, “But I just wanted to tell you that I am so _deeply_ sorry about the way I treated you all. If I had known how this would affect all of you . . .” 

Keith isn’t sure what it is—the tone of his voice, the gravity in his face—but it causes chills to erupt all over his skin. _He knows something._ He thinks back on the last conversation he’d had with the man, thinks of how, if Coran remembers everything that happened while he was under brainworm-possession, he’ll _definitely_ recall a lot of things that Keith wishes he didn’t. 

He had been so _desperate._ He doesn’t know how he’s going to explain that one away. 

“Hey, don’t blame yourself,” Hunk says, shaking his head. “You couldn’t have known how that weird worm-thing was going to affect you.” 

“Yeah,” Pidge agrees, “What matters is that you’re normal again. Just don’t let us catch you using mind-altering substances ever again, young man.” 

Coran smiles again, but as he looks at him Keith thinks that he was wrong, before. Coran doesn’t look like he’s back to normal. He’s too regretful for that. It makes him look . . . _old,_ in a way that he never has before. Like all ten thousand years of his frozen life are catching up with him, all at once. 

Keith can’t stand to see it anymore. He squeezes Lance’s hand, leans in to quietly tell him, “I’m going to bed.” (Because that’s something he has to do now; someone has to know where he is “ _at all times, no exceptions.”_ Keith can’t stand that, either, but it’s the rule until he starts talking, and it’s easier to comply with the rules than it is to deal with the fallout that results if he doesn’t.)

Lance nods, turns to plant a chaste kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he says, and Keith’s stomach twists with some unidentifiable but unmistakably unpleasant emotion. Before it can be fully realized into something, he swallows it down, says, “Fine,” and turns to leave. He can still hear the others softly speaking with Coran when the doors close behind him. 

True to his word, Lance comes to bed only a short while after Keith lays down. By the time his boyfriend pads into the room, Keith has curled up under the blankets and is feigning sleep. (It’s something he’s been doing a lot lately: pretending to sleep through the night, unlucky if sleep truly _does_ find him. Regardless, he always ends up more exhausted in the morning than he was the night before.) Lance quietly says his name once, twice, and when he doesn’t get a response, he sighs. A few moments later he’s climbing into bed, carefully sliding under the blankets, making sure not to disturb him. 

Lance never touches him when he thinks Keith is asleep. It’s one of those things he’s noticed lately, now that he has nothing to distract himself with but the minute details of their daily lives. He wonders about that, because Lance has always seemed the type to curl right up with whoever he shares a bed with; there’s this part of Keith’s subconscious that’s growing worriedly suspicious. He’s concocted a few theories, and he doesn’t like most of them. He hopes he’s just overanalyzing it in the way that he overanalyzes most things. 

“I love you,” Lance whispers. And that, at least, doesn’t need to be overanalyzed. Not yet. Not while Keith can convince himself that Lance doesn’t know anything that would change his mind. Not while he can still believe that Lance _does._

_I love you,_ Keith thinks, but doesn’t say. The image of Lance filling the other space in his bed is something that he hasn’t decided is a comfort or not yet, but he holds it in his mind and likes to think that it is. 

He might carry it into sleep, and he might not. Either way, the way he wishes he could roll over to face him, to curl into his side and pretend that everything is normal, that everything is _better,_ is such a longing _ache_ in him that it’s like fighting a magnetic pull in his bones to stay where he is. And the way he wishes he could ask Lance to hold him is so powerful that it almost moves his leaden tongue to action, but then he thinks of how lately, Lance’s first question when they speak alone is always: _do you want to talk about anything?_

The answer is always no. Keith is never going to want to talk. So he bites his tongue, swallows back the words, and lets the silence lull him into that place between sleep and wakefulness. 

  
  


_____

  
  


The worst phases of Keith’s life have always come from sitting still for too long. 

It’s a law of nature that he’d tried to break too many times when he was young: getting stuck on the same lesson over and over until it nearly broke him instead. It’s why he always wound up running, in the end—the worst things always happen when he isn’t moving on. If he stands still, then he’s moving backward, and that’s never meant _anything_ good for him. 

The itch beneath his skin, the _need_ for movement, for a fight, is the only thing Keith can think about, staring down through the glass windows at the training deck below. The others are logged in right now, practicing team exercises, and he watches them in the same way an aspiring dancer might watch a professional ballet performance—a little bit envious, a little bit despairing. _Why can’t that be me?_ The tinny ringing of blades-on-staffs filters in through the speakers, accompanied by the mingled notes of their voices as they call out warnings and commands to one another. 

“It must be difficult to watch them,” Coran suddenly speaks up. He’s standing at the monitors, studying the control settings more intensely than strictly necessary. Trying hard to keep it from seeming like he’s trying to trap Keith in conversation. Keith fully knows what he’s doing. 

“Yeah,” he says anyway. He’s on the floor, picking at a stray thread in his sock. Also pretending. “Guess it is.” 

“I haven’t apologized to you personally,” Coran abruptly segues, completely dropping his guise of nonchalance as he turns to face Keith. There’s that drawn cast to his face again, the darkness in his eyes that makes him look older than he should. 

Keith looks away from him. “You apologized in the medbay. It’s fine, Coran. You . . . you didn’t do anything wrong, anyway.” 

“I did,” Coran replies, unexpectedly firm. It draws Keith’s eyes back to him out of curiosity, but he regrets the action immediately. The intelligence in Coran’s eyes is a vastly different brightness from the frenzied obsession that plagued him before—it’s a different kind of chilling. It raises the hair at the back of Keith’s neck, even before he continues speaking. 

“I said things that negatively affected you. Things that _harmed_ you. And regardless of my own mental state at the time, I shouldn’t have said them, and I’m appalled at myself for having done so. I _am_ sorry, Keith—as I should be. And . . . you don’t have to forgive me just because you feel you should.” 

“If there’s anything to be forgiven, then it is.” Keith can’t look at him anymore; he redirects his gaze to the training deck just in time to watch Lance slide beneath a volley of lasers. “But you really don’t have to be sorry for anything.” 

“Keith.” There’s a frown in Coran’s voice, like he’s going to protest, so Keith cuts that off. “I’m too tired to be angry, Coran,” he says, and it’s painfully honest in the way it sticks in his throat, the way it presses down on his lungs. He’s so exhausted that the effort it takes to speak alone is physically draining. He wants nothing more than to go back to bed. But then, there’s also nothing he wants less. “Please just . . . let it go. I don’t want you to apologize. I don’t want you to feel bad or anything, either. Just forget about it.” 

“Is that what you’ve been trying to do? Forget?” And there it is: the blood-freezing question; Coran laying his cards on the table. _He knows. What does he know?_

Keith’s heart is a stone in his chest, layering itself over in sheets of ice, shards flaking and flying and biting into his ribs as they form. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Yes, you do.” Coran’s voice is gentle, and that just makes it worse. It makes it . . . _so_ much worse. 

“What do you know,” he says, words barely a whisper. He wants to run. He wants to _get out of here,_ wants to be as far away from Coran as possible, because now that the question is out there, he realizes that he doesn’t actually want the answer. He doesn’t want to know whatever it is Coran knows. But that ice in his ribcage is spreading through his bones, down his limbs to his hands and feet, keeping him paralyzed. His tongue is frozen to the roof of his mouth. 

He hears movement, sees Coran in his peripheral vision as he takes careful, measured steps over to him. He sits down an arm’s length away, and Keith thinks through the blanket of numbing frost sweeping over him that the distance was probably a deliberate choice. If Keith was someone else—Allura, or Pidge, or Lance—space would have been a non-issue. 

“I can only speculate, of course,” Coran begins—careful, almost diplomatic. Like Allura, days ago. Like everyone since then. “But I have some . . . theories.” 

Keith sweeps his gaze to him, and then just as quickly away. “What theories?” 

“Someone hurt you, a long time ago. Maybe a few someones,” Coran says. Keith keeps his attention fixed on what’s happening below: Pidge somersaulting beneath a droid’s blade, Allura taking it down before the green paladin has risen back to her feet. They’re all working with the standard-issue bots until Pidge and Hunk can fix the gladiator, meaning training is in a semipermanent stage of easy mode, but the princess still exerts a little more force than necessary before the droid deactivates and sinks into the floor below. 

Coran must take Keith’s silence for admission, because he presses on as if he’s right. “Whatever those someones did affects everything you do, even now, even so far removed from Earth. And whatever happened was so terrible that you refuse to talk about it with anyone.” 

“And what those someones did?” It’s a struggle to keep his voice even, to sound like this conversation isn’t affecting him. “Where does that fit into your theories?”

The Altean goes silent, and Keith presses his lips together, eyes glued to the artificial battle below. Hunk and Lance are at the center of it now, taking heavy gunfire and throwing it right back. Shiro’s acting as a shield. He’s settled back into leadership almost seamlessly, it seems. That’s probably a good thing, Keith thinks distantly. It doesn’t feel like it. 

It’s been so long since Keith asked the question that he nearly forgets he had by the time Coran answers. When he does, his voice is hushed—not secretive but grave, not to be taken lightly. 

“I know that Allura and I . . . we have always spoken so fondly of our home planet. And we _do_ love and miss Altea still, with our entire beings. But sometimes I feel that—what is that human saying? Allura remembers Altea through rose-tinted glasses. She remembers a planet that was always peaceful, always happy and free. She believes in a utopia that . . . never existed.” 

Keith tilts his head just enough to be able to see Coran in his peripheral vision, just enough for him to know he has his attention. The Altean himself is staring through the glass windows as if he’s seeing something far away, and not the actual scene of his niece and their team running drills. 

“She was born after the wars ended, but not long after. We did tell her the stories when she was old enough to understand them, of course, but sometimes I am not so sure she believed they were true. And I wondered—wonder still, sometimes—how she never once questioned why her father decided to create a war machine stronger than any other in the universe, if Altea was as peaceful as she believes it to have always been.

“Altea was not peaceful. Not until Alfor’s rule. Alfor’s father was a very cruel man, with some very cruel beliefs. We spent the majority of our youth fighting him and his class of tyrants. Even after he was assassinated, there were still so many bands of loyalists to deal with. And while we were at war, we all saw many unspeakable, horrible things. I am ashamed to say that Alteans on _both_ sides could be merciless, nightmarish. Blood was spilled in streets, in city squares, in peoples’ homes. There were some who would do anything to break their enemies: they would torture them to the point of insanity, kill their children in front of them, rape them. . . .” Coran trails off, eyes glazed from the memories until he blinks, shakes his head, and turns to look at Keith. 

And Keith hasn’t taken a single breath the entire time the older man has been speaking, but this would be the part where he would stop breathing, if he had been. He looks at Coran and he knows that the Altean man has him all figured out, even before he pointedly says, “My point is, I’ve seen my share of devastation. I know the effects that different types of trauma can cause. And I see a lot of those effects in you, Keith.” 

It’s a little bit like that awful conversation he’d had with the others, when they’d sat him down from team duties. Being kicked off the team hadn’t filled him with the heart-dropping fear he’d been trying to avoid. It had just taken the last of the fight out of him. 

Keith doesn’t want to fight with Coran, and he isn’t afraid of him, either. His eyes are dry when he blinks, unseeing as he redirects his gaze to his feet. That loose thread is still there, sticking up like a weed that refuses to be trampled. It bothers him, but if he pulls at it, the entire thing might unravel. 

“I was never a war victim,” is the only thing he can think to say. And it’s true—he knows there are lots of people out there in the universe, _billions_ more, who have suffered far more horrific things than he has. But that knowledge has never seemed to help him much. The reminder really only ever makes him feel worse. 

But, “No matter,” Coran says anyway, in the same firm, uncompromising voice from the beginning of their conversation, when he was trying to convince Keith that he deserved an apology from him. That part of the discussion feels like it happened ages ago. It was probably only minutes. “Trauma is trauma. What happened to you is something that never should have. I’m sorry it did. I’m sorry that I made it worse by treating you in the way I did.” 

Keith has nothing to say to that; he nearly says Coran didn’t do anything, but he supposes they’re past the lying part, now. He gives in to the urge to tug at that thread—it doesn’t budge. He tugs harder and it yields enough to tear a tiny hole in the corner, near his smallest toe. 

“Are you going to tell the others?” he eventually asks. Coran shakes his head. 

“It’s not for me to tell,” he says, “But . . . perhaps you should.” 

“Everyone keeps saying that. That I should talk. But it’s not going to fix anything.” 

“Maybe fixing it isn’t the point,” Coran says. “It’s something that already happened. It can’t _be_ fixed. Perhaps the point is simply to make it so you can live with it. But . . . regardless, I won’t try to sway you either way. It’s your story—you can tell it if or when you choose to do so. And until then, no one will hear anything from me.” 

Keith is a little taken aback by the relief that rises up in him, that knocks against the hard edges of his icy barriers. But he means it all the same when he says, “Thanks, Coran.” 

It’s a little while later, as training is winding down below, that Keith finds the strength to admit just one thing. “I never meant for things to get this bad, you know. I never meant to—make such a mess.” 

“No one blames you for struggling,” Coran says. But Keith shakes his head; that isn’t what he was trying to get to. 

“No, I don’t . . . I just mean, I didn’t want them to know things were bad. I don’t want them to know.” 

“Why not?” The question isn’t judgmental—just curious, and strangely, a little familiar. But being faced with it so bluntly, Keith finds that all of the answers that make sense in his head have abandoned him. 

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “I don’t . . . I don’t know.” But it’s still true that he doesn’t, and those reasons are still _there,_ even if they’re a little beyond his grasp. “I’m tired,” he says, and he doesn’t know if it’s an explanation or an excuse. 

Coran’s expression doesn’t change—sad eyes, compassionate smile. He doesn’t try to tell Keith that he doesn’t have any real reasons, then. He doesn’t try to tell him anything. 

And it’s—nice, Keith thinks, for once not feeling like something is expected of him. Not feeling like he has to explain something or give something that he _can’t._ It’s nice to just sit like this, the silence around them and the floor beneath them and no tension between them. For the first time in days, Keith doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating. It’s just . . . nice. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_The name plaque on the therapist’s desk reads_ ‘Dr. Greene.’ _Keith’s been focused on that for the past fifteen minutes, because it’s better than meeting the therapist’s gaze. Dr. Greene has the kind of hungry, roving eyes that seek to take everything in you out and slap a clinical label on everything, then put everything back haphazardly without ever really fixing anything. She’s already turned him into a statistic, anyway. He thinks the number is probably all she sees when she looks at him._

_“Tell me again,” she says. “So you knew what would happen, if you went to that party?”_

_Keith’s already gone over the minute details of the night once; that alone is one time too many. He doesn’t want to re-narrate one of the worst nights of his life for this woman to take apart again. He doesn’t want to be here at all._

Do it for Shiro, _he reminds himself. Shiro doesn’t ask him for much. He just wants Keith to get better, and evidently, this is the way to do that. Therapy. So far, it hasn’t done much for Keith besides make him really angry. He has to sit on his hands so he won’t ball them into fists._

_“Yeah,” he says, as indifferently as he can manage. “I mean, I figured. Things tended to happen at parties.”_

_“And yet you still went,” she swiftly assesses. She has an eyebrow raised, so Keith knows what her opinion on the situation is. He bites the inside of his cheek._

_“Why did you decide to go, if you knew something was likely to happen there?”_

_Keith stares at her blankly, because blankness always reads better than disbelief. He doesn’t understand what pieces aren’t connecting in her brain._

_“I told you,” he says, aiming for carelessness, but he falls into that tone of ‘I’m-talking-to-a-complete-_ _dumbass’ that he tends to use explicitly around authority figures. He sends a mental apology to Shiro. “My boyfriend didn’t understand the word ‘no.’ I didn’t have a choice.”_

_“You always have a choice,” she says, in the dismissive way of adults that he’s grown used to around foster parents and social workers. He’s fairly certain that therapists aren’t supposed to act like this. “You could have chosen not to go that night. You knew the risks, and you went anyway.”_

_“No,” Keith argues. Frustration is beginning to flutter in his pulse, trapped baby birds begging for escape. “You don’t_ get it. _When Alex said to do something, you did it. If I fought him, he would’ve gotten mad. It would have made the night so much worse.”_

_“I thought you said that night couldn’t have_ been _worse. It sounds to me like you don’t have your own story straight.”_

_Keith’s frustration rises onto a cresting wave of anger. “Don’t_ tell me _I’m wrong._ I’m _the one who was there. I know what happened. You don’t get to call me crazy. You’re supposed to_ help _me.”_

_“I’m trying to help you. And I’m not calling you crazy. But in order for me to be able to help you, I have to understand why you chose to do the things you did. That means you have to be honest with me about your motivations for going to that party.”_

_Keith’s mind goes blank. He doesn’t understand this. “What motivations?”_

_“I’m aware that you’ve had some trouble with alcohol in the past. Maybe the promise of a drink would have enticed you to go with your boyfriend?”_

_“What?_ No. _I didn’t_ want _to drink—”_

_“But when your boyfriend gave you something, you drank it.”_

_“Because he would’ve shoved it down my throat if I didn’t. He_ drugged me. _He tried to—he tried to kill me.”_

_Her eyes are skeptical, icy lasers of preconceptions. “So you say.”_

_Keith grips his thighs in an attempt to ground himself. “What is that supposed to mean.”_

_“You claim your boyfriend was this terrible, monstrous figure who drugged and raped and attempted to drown you at parties. Yet you were with him for three years and never breathed a single word about the abuse to anyone. Then, an entire year after the last time you saw him, suddenly you have more horrific stories about him than a true crime documentary. You can understand why someone might question the validity of your accounts.”_

_Keith feels his blood run cold. “You don’t believe me,” he realizes._

_(Really, she’s just confirming what he’s suspected since the first week. But Shiro told him to give it time:_ “it’ll get better, Keith.”) 

_(Shiro really isn’t going to like hearing that Keith quit therapy.)_

_“I don’t doubt that you_ _believe things happened a certain way. But sometimes these things are more complicated than you understand—”_

_Keith stands, grabbing his backpack from the floor as he rises. “Try to understand_ this,” _he says, voice icy enough to match her cold marble eyes. “I can’t_ stand you, _and I am_ never _coming back here. I’ve had enough of people in my life calling me a liar.”_

_She doesn’t even blink. And she still doesn’t believe him. He can imagine the kind of things she’s going to try to feed to Shiro._ He needs to get his anger under control. He’s having difficulties with opening up. He isn’t as well-adjusted as he should be. He’s lashing out. 

_What a load of complete and meaningless_ bullshit. 

_He slams the door of her office shut behind him so loudly that he wouldn’t be surprised if the entire Garrison could hear it. Other office staff watch him as he goes, and he ignores the way their stares feel exactly like Dr. Greene’s. All of these people think that just because of a few labels stamped on his file, they have a place to psychoanalyze and judge him for things they can’t even begin to understand. All of these people—except for two._

_One of them is taking a rare moment for himself on a weekday afternoon to do nothing but watch anime and consume what could be considered an alarming amount of coffee; Shiro looks up when Keith comes in, easy smile already on his face as he reaches to set his mug down on the coffee table. The sight of him like this is like taking the first breath of fresh air after a day spent surrounded in smoke, even if it does make Keith feel like his lungs are caving in a little. “Hey, kiddo. How was your day?” But then Shiro gets a good look at his expression, and some of that cheerfulness fades into concern. “What happened?”_

_Keith collapses on the couch, close enough that Shiro can wrap an arm around him and tuck him into his side. He buries his head in the fabric of Shiro’s sweater and breathes in shakily._

_“I’m sorry, Shiro,” he says, and blinks so rapidly that he’s pretty sure he gets sweater fuzz in his eyelashes. “I know I keep disappointing you. But I’m never, ever going back to therapy.”_

_Shiro is quiet for a long moment, during which Keith’s heart goes back and forth from racing in panic to freezing in dread._ What if he gets mad? What if he gets mad? _But when Shiro finally sighs, he doesn’t sound angry. Just . . . tired. “It’s not getting better, huh?”_

_“She said I’m lying,” he whispers. There’s another moment of silence; this one isn’t so bad, though. Keith makes himself more comfortable, tugging at the corner of Shiro’s blanket until it gives and he can both cover himself with it and better leech off of his brother-figure’s warmth._

_“I’m so sorry, Keith,” Shiro tells him. The thing about Shiro is that when he apologizes, you can tell he means it. He really sounds like he regrets it—even when it’s not his fault. “You don’t have to go back to her. You’re right—that was an_ awful _thing for her to say. But I . . . I don’t want you to give up yet, okay? There are other therapists—”_

“No,” _Keith insists. He clutches Shiro’s sweater tighter and shakes his head. “No more therapists. Just_ being _with you helps me feel better than therapy ever will. So just . . . just stay here, okay?”_

_Shiro sighs again, but he pulls Keith more tightly to him, so he thinks it’s okay. “Alright,” Shiro finally says, “For now, I’ll let it go. But we’re going to talk about this again later, okay?”_

_“Sure, whatever.” Keith has no intention of talking about this again. But he already knows Shiro is going to try a lot, and it’s going to take a lot of mental preparation to be able to argue with him. So he closes his eyes, breathes in the scent of Shiro’s fabric softener (the same fabric softener he uses on Keith’s own clothes, now), and lets the familiar, nearly-peaceful sound of Japanese cartoon characters yelling in the background lull him to sleep._

  
  


_____

  
  


“So after they sing the song in the tavern, the one guy comes back and is like, _‘the guards are coming!’_ So they open this door to a secret passageway behind the bar and—” 

“Wait,” Allura sits up straighter, brows creasing. “There just _happens_ to be a secret passageway behind the bar? That seems unrealistically convenient.” 

“It’s a Disney movie, Allura,” Lance says. The amusement in his voice filters right into Keith’s ear, where he has his head nestled against his shoulder. “It’s supposed to be unrealistically convenient.” 

“I do not understand,” the princess says. A long tendril of hair falls out of the messy pile on top of her head, and she tucks it behind her ear reflexively. She looks her age in a way that she rarely ever does; young, dressed in silk baby pink pajamas, spoon dipped in the half-eaten parfait-like concoction Hunk had created for human-movie-night. She looks like she could be a college student, instead of one of the most influential diplomats and warriors in the known universe. 

There’s a dollop of yogurt on her nose. She either doesn’t know it’s there, or she doesn’t care. She’s still on the secret trapdoor thing. “So just because it is meant for children, it has to be unbelievable?” 

“No, that’s not—” Lance sighs, fond exasperation. “Look, it’s a _fairytale._ Yeah, it’s a little unbelievable, but that’s the fun of it. It’s not that kids _can’t_ believe in real stuff, but it’s . . . make-believe is good for the imagination. It’s for _fun.”_

“Fun,” Allura repeats the word like it’s foreign in her mouth. For all Keith knows, it is. He isn’t sure if Alteans had much of a concept of fun. Allura certainly hasn’t had much time for it, lately. 

“Anyway,” Lance clears his throat. From the tone of his voice, Keith thinks he was probably thinking along the same lines. He can’t see his face, but he can envision the little frown that tugs at the corners of his mouth. “So as they’re going through the secret door, the guy with the hook for a hand says: _‘Go, live your dream.’_ And Flynn says—” 

_“‘I will,’”_ Pidge quotes solemnly from Keith’s other side. Her elbow digs a little sharply into Keith’s ribs as she shifts, but he says nothing about it. She’s been glued to his side ever since he sat down on the couch; she’s taken to hovering around him like this a lot, lately. In that catlike, _I want to be near you but I’m acting indifferent because clinginess is beneath me_ way. 

Keith can’t look at her lately, because these days the shadows beneath her amber eyes are haunting. Looking at her is the single most guilt-wrenching thing in his life at this point, and he’s too exhausted and overwhelmed to deal with it, so he just—doesn’t look at her. He can’t. He’ll let her elbow him as much as she wants, intentional or not. He deserves it. He probably deserves worse. 

_“‘Your dream stinks. I was talking to her.’”_ Lance clears his throat and breaks character to say, “Ugh, my voice is cracking. Pidge, can you hand me my water?” The green paladin does so, passing the pouch over Keith to him, and takes over narration. “Right, so then the horse breaks into the bar—” 

Lance turns his head so he can speak closer to Keith’s ear. “How are you feeling? Do you want to go to bed?” he asks lowly, so the others won’t hear. He brushes Keith’s hair out of his face with the hand of the arm he has tucked over his shoulder and Keith leans into the warmth, even as he closes his eyes and shakes his head. 

“I’m fine,” he whispers. He isn’t: he thinks there’s nothing more that he’d want than to lock himself in his room and lay in the dark. But he’s been doing a lot of that lately—probably too much. He almost didn’t get up to come join the others for the first movie night they’ve had in a long time. Human-movie-night. It had been Lance’s idea way back when, and his idea to reinstate it now. He wanted Keith to come. 

Lance says they haven’t been spending enough time together as a family, lately. Maybe he’s right; it’s too easy to get so caught up in the whirlwind of war and diplomacy that they neglect their personal lives. And for the most part, it’s nice to spend time together like this—just sitting down for once, eating alien desserts and talking about Earth things with their Altean friends. 

But they’re trying too hard to act normal. Their voices are _too_ light, too soft. No one raises their voice in excitement or gets caught up and rambles away with whatever they’re saying. And no one talks about the fact that Keith has barely said a single word all night, or how Shiro is on the opposite couch, as far from him as he could possibly get. 

Nothing about this is normal. But it’s just _enough_ for no one to feel like they have to say it; or maybe they just don’t want to say it; or maybe they’re waiting for Keith to say something first. 

It feels so wrong that Keith wants to cry, a little bit. But then, he always wants to cry lately, so maybe this has nothing to do with it at all. 

He wants to go back to bed. He wants to _sleep._ He says nothing. 

“But then they’re trapped in this cave right, and it’s filling up with water. And Flynn’s like: _‘holy shit, we’re going to die, so I might as well tell you that my name is actually Eugene Fitzherbert,’_ and Rapunzel’s like: _‘holy shit, we’re going to die, so I might as well tell you that my hair glows when I sing.’_ And then she’s like, ‘wait, _my hair_ glows _when I_ sing.’ So she starts singing the song right as the water closes over their heads and—” 

If Keith closes his eyes, the sound of Pidge’s voice distorts as if _she’s_ the one speaking underwater. He lets her voice fade in and out, breathes in the mingled scents of Lance’s shampoo and body wash and lotion, the fabric softener of his shirt. Keith smells like him, actually; not because he’s suddenly started using all of Lance’s products, but because he pulled on the first shirt his hand landed on this morning, and he didn’t realize until late in the afternoon that it wasn’t his. 

He doesn’t mind it. It’s actually kind of nice—familiar in a way that’s different from his own generic soap-and-skin smell, comforting because it’s like being wrapped up in all of the things he loves. 

“—and in the morning, Flynn’s woken up to the horse drooling all over his face and he goes: _‘well I hope you’re here to apologize.’_ I uh, don’t quite remember what goes down next, so . . . Hunk, your turn,” Pidge is saying. She nudges Keith in the ribs again, and this time he realizes it’s on purpose. 

“Hey, Keith, you gonna finish that?” 

Keith’s vision is fuzzy around the edges when he squints his eyes open again. The lights are too bright. “What?” he says blearily. 

There’s no way to avoid looking at Pidge, now. He tilts his head, and she pointedly looks from the dessert on the coffee table, artistically carved out in a few places with his spoon to make it look like he had taken a few bites before setting it down, to questioningly rove over Keith’s face. Her eyes are dark with exhaustion. Her hair, messily thrown into a ponytail earlier, is coming down around her without her notice. It’s getting long again, he notices distantly. 

“No,” he says, finally registering the question. “I’m not. You can have it, if you want.” 

Pidge stares for a few seconds longer before finally breaking, plucking up Keith’s abandoned bowl and settling back against his side. It takes Keith another beat to realize Hunk has stopped speaking. In fact, the entire lounge is silent. 

“Hey,” Hunk says uncertainly into the sudden quiet, “Keith, buddy . . . have you eaten at _all_ today?”

“What?” It’s taking him longer than usual to process words. They’re still floating to him underwater, bubbling up and popping. “Yeah. Why?” 

“Just—you were resting today, right? You weren’t at breakfast or lunch. You barely touched dinner. Are you sure you’re not hungry?” 

Keith is tensing, slowly—like a skittish animal, unsure of whether something is a danger or not. “Lance brought me something,” he says, because he remembers that. But then Lance quietly says, “You barely ate any of it, Keith.” 

He’s definitely tensing now. He thinks Lance can feel it. “But I _did_ eat some of it. I ate enough. I’m not hungry.” 

“Keith—” Hunks frown is growing. “If you want me to make you something else—” 

“You really don’t have to do that,” Keith interrupts. His heart is slowly beginning to beat an anthem of alarm through him. _Get away from this topic. Get away from this._ “I don’t want you to do that. Just keep telling the story.” 

“You can’t stop taking care of yourself just because you aren’t on paladin duties right now,” Hunk goes on stubbornly, ignoring Keith’s hint to _drop it._ Getting more emotional as he says, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you. _None of us do._ But we don’t have to know _that_ to know that not eating is _bad for you._ You’re already so thin that you could probably blow away if one of the air vents came on too quickly. I mean, are we going to have to put you on a meal plan on top of everything else?” 

Beside him, he feels Lance tense up now, too. _“Hunk,”_ he says quietly. Reproachfully.

Keith can feel himself going someplace else, holding onto the present by his fingertips, slowly losing his grip one by one as somewhere else, someone is saying, _“You’re too thin,”_ fingertips sloping down his ribs individually, and the disapproval _burns_ like nails biting into his skin, there—

“Lance,” he says—jarring, the name belonging to a different time, scraping in his mouth as he closes his eyes, as he grips the fabric of Lance’s shirt to ground himself. “I change my mind. I want to—I want to go to bed.” _I don’t want to be here. Please take me away from here._

There’s a moment of awful, uncertain silence. Keith reminds himself to breathe through his nose. He counts to five—to eight—starts over, because he can’t remember what number is right. And then Lance squeezes him around his shoulders once, softly says, “Alright. C’mon then, babe,” slowly pulls him to his feet. Keith is dizzied by the sudden change in altitude, but he doesn’t let it show as Lance tucks him back into his side, walks him out of the room. Someone quietly calls out a goodnight as they go—he thinks it might be Allura; he isn’t sure—but he says nothing until Lance is pressing the button to open the door to his room. Lance looks tired. Keith bites his lip. 

“I’m sorry that I—I’m sorry I ruin everything, Lance.” The guilt is a wave, a storm surge off a hurricane. Beneath him, the ground feels unsteady like they’re standing on the deck of a ship in that same storm. They’re going to go under, he thinks. They’re going to drown like this. 

“You do not ruin everything,” Lance tells him. He tucks Keith’s bangs behind his ears, pulls him forward so he can kiss his forehead. He stays with him like that, unmoving in the doorway, solid and steady and _here,_ everything Keith needs, everything he doesn’t deserve, until he gathers enough strength to take the last few steps inside. 

  
  


_____

  
  


“Do you think we would judge you for these?” Lance asks him one night. 

Quietly, softly—it barely sounds like a question at all. He has the fingers of one hand looped around Keith’s wrist; he’s tracing the lines of the fabric with the other. Keith watches the movement, his heart beating this slow dance of unsurety in his chest. He should pull away, he thinks. He should tell Lance to let him go. 

He doesn’t do either of those things. “No—I don’t know,” he whispers. The words feel thick, too heavy in his mouth, but they also have this strange, wispy quality, like if he tries to hold onto them too hard they’ll dissolve. “I don’t wear them because of you, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“Then why?” Curiosity laces the dip of his fingertips, right at the band of skin where the glove cuts off. His skin burns where he touches. 

Keith doesn’t know how he could even begin trying to explain. It’s so much more than not _liking_ to see them; there are days when the mere sight of his bare wrists is so horrifying that he feels sick at a glimpse. There are times when it’s so awful to be reminded that they exist that he’ll put off showering as long as he can get away with. Washing his hands, even, can be a nightmare some days, and the only way he ever gets through _that_ is by focusing on scrubbing until they’re raw, never looking anywhere beyond the natural lines of his palms. 

“I can’t stand to see them, Lance. I _hate_ them. I look at them and see—and see everything I’ve ever regretted, or been ashamed of, or afraid of. I look at them and . . .” He bites his lip, closes his eyes. Breathes in slowly. 

“And what?” Lance asks, still so soft, and he breathes out. 

“I see red,” he finishes. “Everything was—it was all _so_ red.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying any of this. Maybe because it’s not so hard, admitting to something Lance already knows anyway. Maybe because Coran’s voice is still in his head, saying, _maybe fixing it isn’t the point._

“That sounds awful,” Lance whispers. He sounds—sad. Regretful, even though it’s not his fault. Similar to the way Shiro used to, back when Keith would talk and he would listen, and there was never anything to say other than: “I’m . . . so sorry you had to go through that alone, Keith.” 

“Yeah,” Keith whispers back. Because there’s never anything else to say. Lance’s fingers are still tracing, coming back again to that strip right above the fabric, and Keith stares until the image blurs in his vision and he leans forward just enough to rest his head on Lance’s shoulder, eyelids fluttering shut. 

“You can take them off if you want.” 

Lance’s fingertips still. “I—but is that . . . is that okay?” 

“I wouldn’t’ve said it if it wasn’t, would I?” Truthfully, Keith doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, or if it’s right, or if it’s wrong, or where he’s supposed to draw the line. He should draw the line. He should say that no, actually he’s tired, he wants to go to bed, even though they’re already technically in bed, even though _sleeping_ is worse than being awake most of the time. 

He doesn’t stop Lance when his fingertips gently tug at velcro, first on one hand, and then the other. He remembers the last time they were like this; it had been a vastly different scenario, painful and cold and hard-to-hide tears, one of the worst things about his life laid bare in front of one of his closest friends. But this is different—he’s not in any pressing physical pain, for one. Neither one of them is crying. Lance knows these scars now, knows what to expect when there’s nothing hiding them. 

The pads of Lance’s fingertips hit where living skin dead-ends, and Keith shivers. Lance pauses. “This okay?” he asks. Keith nods, shakily exhales. 

“Just—no one else has ever . . .” He doesn’t know how to finish that thought. He supposes he doesn’t need to. Lance probably gets it. 

“Oh,” Lance says. He gets it. He swipes his thumbs across the jagged, unclean lines—wrought from defeat, messily drawn in panic. Keith’s eyes are still closed, but he doesn’t have to see them. He remembers the day he drew them as clearly in his mind as if it had just happened a day ago. 

“You don’t have to answer,” Lance says. “How old were you?” 

“Fourteen,” Keith answers. It’s all there in his head—him, fourteen by only a couple months, water running like the details of the previous night through his brain, footsteps on the stairs, blood spilling across porcelain. Isabella’s voice in his ear. He opens his eyes, because the blackness gives way too easily to imagination, and Keith doesn’t want to go there. Not now. Not ever again. 

But Lance stops breathing for a moment; a little like he’s surprised Keith told him, a lot because of _what_ he told him. “That’s . . . so young,” he says quietly. Distantly, like he’s trying to remember just how long ago fourteen was. And he still sounds so sad. Keith hates that he makes Lance sound like that—like the world is ending. Like maybe it ended a long time ago and no one ever told him. 

“Not to make light of a serious moment, but uh . . . Keith? Your skin is _so_ dry.” He feels Lance flip his hands over, thumbs sweeping over his knuckles, now. “Actually, no, this is serious too. Sweetheart, they’ve been _bleeding._ Do they not hurt you? Why didn’t you say something?” 

Keith flicks his gaze down, curious at what Lance is talking about more than anything. He lives by the whole _out of sight, out of mind_ philosophy—or, at least, he tries. At the end of the day, his hands are never the most important thing. He doesn’t think about them. But sure enough, there are tiny, fiberglass cuts that ridge his knuckles like thin, dried-up creek beds. He doesn’t feel it. He probably should. 

“Oh,” he says. His voice sounds disconnected, like it doesn’t really have a place in this conversation. Maybe it doesn’t, because all he has are excuses. “I didn’t . . . know that was there.” 

Lance’s sigh is a soft breath in his ear as he squeezes his hands gently, then releases him to slide off the bed. Keith watches him go, brows creasing in confusion. “Where are you going?” 

Lance pauses, eyes flicking to Keith with something he can’t identify behind them. “I’m going to get something from my room,” he says, “I’ll be right back.” The promise shouldn’t reassure Keith as much as it does—there’s nothing _to_ assure. Still, he’s glad that Lance doesn’t take long to do whatever it is he went off to do, slipping back into the room in his fuzzy socks, a bottle of something in hand. 

“Alright,” he says on an exhale, uncapping the bottle and pouring it into his hands as he sits down. “This is probably going to sting. Hand your hands over.” 

Keith complies easily enough, though he casts a dubious glance to the silvery, gel-like substance as Lance starts working it into his skin. True to his disclaimer, it stings on contact. Keith makes a face, not at the feeling, but the scent that wafts up to him. It’s an alien scent, unidentifiable, but with a _definite_ undertone of something acrid burning. 

“Why do you have something for everything?” Keith says. He assumes this is a miracle-working dry-skin-reliever of some kind. He’s less surprised that Lance has it than he is at the thought of him ever using it. Lance keeps his skin moisturized enough all the time to never need something so strong, or so he thought. 

“Icy planets, Keith. _Dry, frigid air._ Delicate skin. It’s a devastating combination.” The pads of Lance’s thumbs rub circles into his knuckles, the feeling unexpectedly nice, even with the mild burn. “Anyway, this stuff usually fixes it like, immediately. Let me know if it doesn’t heal up soon, though. Or if it gets bad again. But don’t let it get bad again.” 

“I’ll do my best,” Keith says dryly, but Lance nods in all seriousness, presses a kiss to each of his hands, then lets them go. “Good,” he says, satisfied, and Keith thinks suddenly of how strange this all is—how there’s someone who cares about the state of his _hands,_ of all things. How there’s someone who cares not just about the big tragedies, but the mild discomforts. He thinks of how there aren’t a lot of people like Lance in the universe, and he wonders again how he managed to find him. It doesn’t add up, when he thinks about it. The statistics of someone like Keith getting to have someone like Lance are near nonexistent. Getting _Lance,_ specifically? 

It’s impossible. 

_Are you even real?_ Keith is tempted to ask the question, suddenly. It pounds in his heart, pulses through his veins. _Are you real, are you real, are you real?_ But he finds that he’s afraid of the answer, so he doesn’t say anything; he wraps his arms around Lance’s neck, careful not to get his now-sticky hands anywhere near his hair, and rests his head right where his pulse thrums in his neck. 

_Real,_ he tells himself, as if the tangible evidence means anything. _He’s real._

_Real, real, real._ He isn’t sure if it means anything at all. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_Keith doesn’t want to die._

_It’s all he can think, heart pounding in his ears as he locks the door of the bathroom behind him. The knob_ snicks _and he holds his breath, freezing for a moment. It’s irrational—he’s here alone, Alex’s mom and sister are gone for the weekend and Alex isn’t supposed to be home for a half-hour at least—but it doesn’t stop the panic that he’s going to be found out before he can get it over with._

_He doesn’t want to die. Repeating itself, over and over, as he climbs into the bathtub, turns over his mother’s knife in the same way his brain turns over his thoughts. Guilt swirls inside of him like a living,_ killing _thing as he remembers his last conversation with Isabella, remembers how he had thrown_ this _in her face like it was beneath him. Like no matter how bad things could get, Keith would never sink this low._

At least _I’m_ not the one giving up. 

_Keith breathes, because if he doesn’t breathe, ironically, he won’t be able to do this. He wonders if there’s anyone who’s ever passed out before they could actually get to the act of—he wonders if Isabella felt like this before she did it._

_Isabella always told him she wanted to die. He had wondered so many times, and he still wonders now, how anyone could ever_ want _this. Because he doesn’t. He’s always thought that dying alone is the worst thing that could happen to a person. Being forced to do it yourself, forced to accept that there is no one who will ever love you again, no one who will ever care whether you’re breathing unless it’s to ensure you keep doing something for someone else._

_His dad had died alone._

_If Keith doesn’t do it himself, he thinks his boyfriend will probably, definitely do it for him eventually. Last night came close enough. He doesn’t want to stick around to find out how much farther Alex is willing to go. It’s better like this, to just get it over with himself._

_Turning his mother’s knife over in his hands again. The purple gemstone flashes in the light. He wonders for the millionth time what it’s made of, wonders where his mother had gotten it. Wonders if she had known, when she left it with him, what he would eventually grow up to do with it._

_He wonders if she would care._

_He thinks probably not, since she left him. Maybe. Or she might be dead. He doesn’t know which one would be worse._

_(Who is he kidding. He knows which one would be worse.)_

_Turning on the water. It sounds like the roar of a waterfall, in his ears: a consuming, misting, frigid sound, cascading like blood crying out from the water. His own soon joins it. He stares down at it, the ribboning red of a rushing river, and he_ doesn’t want to do it. 

_He stops. It’s stinging,_ so _awful, and the sight of it makes him want to throw up. The water isn’t draining fast enough and the icy spray throws off beads and ripples that hit his face and the seat of his jeans. He’s so_ cold, _he’s shaking he thinks, and he clutches the knife so tightly that his uninjured wrist strains. He doesn’t want to do this. He wants to stop. He wants to, to—_

_Footsteps on the stairs. He can hear them, like the knocking of a closed fist on a door, like a gunshot. And someone calls out for him. “I’m home. Where are you?”_

_Keith’s heart stops. His blood freezes in his veins._ No. 

_The footsteps stop just outside the door, and he thinks he shouldn’t have turned on the light. He can definitely see the light beneath the door, he knows he’s in here, and he tries to open it—_

_The doorknob rattles. Inquiring knocking. “Keith? You in here?”_

_Keith takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes, scarlet blurs behind his eyelids. “Yeah,” he calls out in as normal a voice as he can manage. He passes, because he hears Alex’s exasperated sigh as he buys it._

_“Fine. Dinner’s downstairs. What are we watching tonight? I’ll go set everything up.”_

_Keith opens his eyes. The bathtub is running in shades of red now, but it’s so much less dramatic than what he expected. This isn’t like a horror movie—it’s not splattering everywhere, staining the porcelain, soaking every inch of his bare skin. But it’s enough to make him feel sick and dizzy. His vision is getting fuzzy, black fog dancing at the edges._

_“I don’t care. Whatever you want,” Keith says. He makes himself sound bored. Unbothered. His wrist is_ screaming, _and so is his head._

_Alex sighs again, but to Keith’s relief, the footsteps retreat back downstairs. He’s alone again, but not for long. He has to do this fast._

_His bleeding wrist is tingling and hurts so badly to switch the knife to his other hand because it’s slick with blood but he does it, biting his lip so he won’t scream as he angles the blade. This one isn’t as clean—jagged and messy, and his hands are shaking so it’s hard to get it right. He bites back a whimper when he can’t take it anymore and lowers the blade to the floor of the tub. It clatters a little, but not enough to be heard beyond the door._

_He takes a deep breath. This is going to be the worst part, he thinks. But if he doesn’t get this part right—if he_ screams, _if his boyfriend hears—then this is all for nothing. He’s regretting this more and more with every heartbeat that pulses, watching his life literally drain out of him, but now that he’s started, he has to finish. He reminds himself that he doesn’t have a choice. Not a real one. If he has to choose between death and spending another_ minute _in this house, he’ll choose death. He’s_ chosen _death._

_He doesn’t want to die. But he’s made his choice._

Some things are worse than death, Keith. 

_He wishes Isabella was here. He wishes he had gone with her. Because she was_ right, _and now he’s dying alone just like she did, just like he said he would never do. She was_ right, _and he messed up. He chose wrong,_ again. _But this will be his last wrong choice._

_The water_ burns, _and he wonders as he bites his tongue so hard he tastes the blood in his mouth—it’s_ everywhere now, all over him _—if this is how his dad felt, dying in that house. He knows logically that the smoke inhalation would have killed him before he could ever feel the flames, but he can imagine that it felt like this. So awful that he can’t stand it—he can’t stand the thought of his dad, he can’t stand the thought of dying like this. Thinking about his dad makes him think of home, and he wants to go there so_ badly, _but he’s never going to go home again._

_It’s impossible to stop the cry that tears out of him then: afraid and despairing and so, so lonely. He doesn’t want to die. He wants to go home. He doesn’t want to die. He wants—_

_There’s a knock on the door. This one is more insistent than the last. “Keith?” says a voice colored in impatience, colored_ red, _colored everything Keith hates and everything he’s afraid of and everything he never wants to hear_ ever again. _“What are you doing in there?”_

_Keith bites down his next sob; it escapes as a whimper instead. The knocking gets louder. The boom of an angry,_ livid _heart. The bang of a gunshot straight through it._

_“Keith. Open the door. Now.”_

_He shouldn’t have this much blood in his body, Keith thinks, desperate as he watches it come and come and come. It’s starting to get blurry in his vision, everything fuzzy and bright around the edges, so he closes his eyes and wills it to come faster. It shouldn’t be long now. It should be over soon._

_He can’t feel the pain anymore, but he still feels the fear; when the knocking starts again, he flinches into the wall of the tub, his breaths ragged and heartbeat slow. Slowing down. Slower. His eyelids flutter shut._

_The last noise he hears is the quiet_ rattle-thud _as the bathroom doorknob is yanked up and pushed forward; is Alex’s voice as he curses, low and fervent. The vindictive but agonized unvoiced thought, the last one Keith will ever leave behind:_ you’re too late. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith is crying when he wakes up. 

Silently—the instinct as familiar to his body as breathing—but unmistakably, tears slick and hot on his skin as awareness creeps into the corners of his mind. Hazy, Keith fumbles in panic for the small light by the bed, fingertips grazing and flooding this fraction of his bedroom with light. He holds his wrists in front of his face, far enough away that he can see them, resting on the bed and half-cast in shadow. They’re still bare from earlier in the night, as clean as they ever are now, clean save for the awful permanent carvings of his pain—but they ache and tingle and burn like it’s happening all over again. 

“Keith?” Lance groggily says behind him; Keith stiffens, fear and panic flaring up too intensely for him to be able to handle; he breathes in too sharply and it’s shuddery and wet. He knows Lance can hear that something is wrong. He still says, “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.” 

Lance hand settles, light and hesitant, then more firmly on his shoulder. “Keith,” he repeats. He’s fully awake now, all traces of tiredness gone from his voice when he tells him, “You don’t have to say everything is okay all the time. It clearly isn’t, right now. Tell me what’s wrong.” 

_Everything._ Keith bites his lip, more tears welling up as he shakes his head against the pillow. He stays silent; Lance’s hand stays steady on his shoulder, warmth seeping through the sleeve of Keith’s shirt. Lance’s shirt. He closes his eyes as the new flood spills, but he can’t stop the shuddering, quiet sob that slips out with it. He covers his mouth with a hand to try and muffle it, knees curling into his chest, trying to make himself so small he’ll disappear. He can’t cry like this, in the middle of the night when his boyfriend needs to be sleeping. He has a mission in the morning. He doesn’t have time to put up with Keith’s shit, and Keith shouldn’t make him. 

“Baby,” Lance sighs when he says this, tilts farther into Keith’s space to press a kiss to the crown of his head. “There’s always something in the morning. That never means you aren’t important _now._ You are. You’re always important. And I _always_ care when you’re upset.” He moves his hand down from Keith’s shoulder to his chest, his arm sliding with it so that he’s holding Keith in what could loosely be defined as a hug. It’s instinct, unconscious want to have him close that draws Keith’s own hand up to his, clasping them both over his heart. It feels too slow and fast at once, memories of _then_ warring with _now,_ reluctant death muddling with regretful life. 

“I didn’t want to do it.” 

The whisper is stolen by his tongue before his head can process it—confessed in shuddering, barely-heard words. _I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to._ He could be talking about any aspect of his life and it would still fit. He didn’t ask for any of _this._ He never wanted this. 

Lance’s own words are careful, quiet and patient as he squeezes Keith’s hand tighter. “Didn’t want to do what?” He sounds like he already knows. Keith closes his eyes, bothered by the way his eyelashes stick together. But he can’t reach up to wipe them, because it would mean breaking Lance’s hold or letting go of his hand to do it, and he _can’t_ let Lance go. 

Keith bites his lip. Shudders again. “I didn’t want to _die,”_ he says, and his voice breaks and cracks and collapses. Like his heart. Like his _life._ “I just wanted my life to be _different.”_

“Oh, sunshine.” Lance’s voice breaks, too, but in a different way—aching but tender, careful, not like Keith’s jagged flinging shards of anguish. “Come here.” He’s gently nudging Keith up so he can wrap himself around him, enveloping him in his warmth and holding him there like he never plans on letting him go. Keith buries his face in Lance’s neck and lets him. He cards slow, gentle fingers through Keith’s sweat-damp and tangled hair, lips spilling a susurrus of comforts that neither one of them really processes. The words themselves aren’t what matter. What matters is that Lance is _here._

He’s here, and—Keith still doesn’t know _why._

He needs to ask. He _has to,_ and soon, because if he doesn’t ask, then he doesn’t know how long it will be before Lance asks himself. The longer he drags it out, the more it’s going to hurt when Lance realizes that he doesn’t know why he’s here, either. When he realizes that he is worth so much more than nights spent sobbing into sheets and sleep shirts, that he deserves _more_ than Keith’s rock-bottom clingy desperation and ceaseless tragedy. 

_Why are you here?_ It’s pressing, right at the back of his throat. _Why are you still here?_

But when he opens his mouth to ask, all that comes out is another silent sob. 

He doesn’t know how long it goes on for. Minutes or hours, lifetimes spent clutching his aching, tired fingers into the silk-soft fabric of Lance’s shirt. Feeling Lance’s hands in his hair, eyes closed as the tears drip like an unfixable leak in someone’s bathroom sink. It feels unbearably heavy, it feels like the sadness that shrouds them is sempiternal, something that—now that it has them—is never going to leave them alone. 

It buries itself deep into their bones, and by the time it’s finished settling into its new home there, Lance breathes quietly in, and on the exhale says something Keith isn’t expecting. 

“You wanna get out of here for a little while?” 

_What do you have in mind?_ Keith pulls away, feeling puffy and tear-sticky and miserable, to get a glimpse of Lance’s face, like all of the clues he needs are there. They aren’t—maybe it’s ironic, how of the two of them, Lance is the one who is impossible to read while _Keith_ is the open book. But he doesn’t look any different from usual: he’s still so honest, so genuine in his asking, so patient as he waits for Keith to give him an answer. Curious, gentle, soft. _You wanna get out of here for a little while?_

Keith wipes his cheeks clean with the bare palms of his hands, releases one last sniffle-cough, and nods. “Please,” he whispers. Even at such a low volume, he winces at the way his voice comes out like a croak. 

Lance nudges him out of bed, quick to follow, hand slipping into Keith’s own as he guides him. Not a full two minutes pass before they’re walking into Red’s hangar, and Keith’s heart gives this single, broken twinge before Lance steps up, presses his hand to the barrier, and it falls away. 

He must catch the look on Keith’s face before he can put it away because he falters, uncertainty pulsing as he raises a hand to run through his hair anxiously. “I thought—you love flying, so I thought, maybe, if we went out just for the hell of it . . .” 

Keith flicks his gaze between Lance and Red’s silent, open mouth, the ramp inviting them—or really, just Lance—up. “I can’t fly Red,” he whispers. 

“No,” Lance says, “but I can. And Red—I know things have been hard, I know you miss her—but she’s important to both of us, so it’s . . . it’s kind of like, we all get to be together like this. And I know you can’t feel it, but she misses you. She wants to see you.” 

Keith’s heart pangs again, uncertain and disbelieving as he stares up at Red’s glowing eyes. But he can’t hear anything coming from her; he has no way of knowing if Lance is telling the truth or not. 

He misses her. _She misses you._ Before he can even really decide whether he’s made up his mind, he hears himself give in: “Okay.” 

It’s a strange, jarring thing to sit down in front of Red’s controls without being able to feel her there. But he can feel Lance, pressed flush against his side on the seat as he reaches to bring Red more to life. Her lights pulse the way they always used to when she would purr, speaking into Keith’s mind a greeting, a _welcome home_ that always filled him with enough warmth to make him believe that he _was,_ if only for a moment. 

“She says hello,” Lance quietly tells him. Keith closes his eyes against the brim of fresh tears. He’s done with tears tonight—he’s already cried too much. He is _not_ going to go to pieces over Red. 

“Hey, Red,” he whispers back, and when he opens his eyes, her lights are pulsing just a little bit brighter. He could be imagining it; he doesn’t think he is. When he glances at Lance, he sees that he’s smiling this soft, sad thing, until he realizes that Keith’s eyes are on him and his expression clears, rewrites itself with a solid, bright grin that almost manages to be completely convincing. 

“You ready to fly, babe?” 

And at Keith’s nod, they _fly._

Keith remembers his days flying Red: all unrefined chaos, flitting in and out of danger like a hummingbird, quick as lightning and sharp as a blade. Keith had always loved flying her, even in the middle of battles, because of how their act-first, think-later natures so perfectly aligned. She’s different from Black, definitely, with her authoritative calculations, with her stance that there is absolutely no room to take a risk that isn’t calculated properly. 

And while Keith knows, clearly, that Lance must have learned to work with Red in the same way he did with Black, he’d never really taken into account how much more _natural_ the blue-turned-red paladin is with his second lion than Keith is with his. Zipping out of the hangar into an immediate barrel roll, an exuberant _whoop!_ filling Red’s cockpit as they jet out of it into this endless pocket of space. Keith himself can’t fight the laugh that bubbles up, unexpected and quiet but _real,_ clutching at Lance’s shoulder and staring through Red’s eyes at the boundless stars. He remembers, in this breathless moment, that there are still beautiful things in the universe. The cosmos through a Voltron lion’s eyes. The sight of Lance’s smile, freely given even after the night Keith has put him through so far. 

And he is so beautiful. It’s not even a debate of where his attention should fall, in the end. It always belongs to Lance. 

He doesn’t know who closes the space first, but later, he’ll think it was himself. They kiss, there in the single pilot’s chair, lips barely brushing once, faltering against each other’s mouths. Lance hesitates, hand falling to Keith’s shoulder to give them both some stability and staying there, like he’s waiting for Keith to make the next move. 

It’s thoughtless, the way breathing too often isn’t, to lean in again for that second kiss. To press all of the coiled-up, protected ball of delicate emotions from his heart into Lance’s mouth; to sit up, unbreaking as he shifts as far into Lance’s space as he can go, hooking a leg over both of Lance’s so he can settle himself in his lap, feeling the way Lance’s hands fall naturally to his back, steady and _easy._ It’s so easy with him. It’s easier than breathing ever has been. 

Lance kisses him differently these days. Softer, not so _much,_ never the dizzying rush of when they got caught up in heated moments before . . . things changed. His hands never stray from their solid place over his spine—even though sometimes, there’s a part of Keith that wishes they would. 

Tonight, Keith is happy to have what he can have. Soft, slow, warm. He can feel their heartbeats between them. He imagines them aligning, beating together, the only sound in this silent universe around them. He imagines that it’s _enough._

Lance breaks it. Pulling away just enough to whisper, a line of what might be worry creasing between his eyebrows, “Keith . . . maybe we shouldn’t, tonight.” 

“Why not?” Keith can feel his own brows creasing, not from concern, but confusion. They aren’t doing anything— _intense._ Neither of them is even the slightest bit winded. And he knows Lance isn’t talking about anything further than kissing, because he hasn’t brought up the subject of _more_ since the night in that unnameable alien hotel suite. 

Still, Lance’s eyes are serious in the way they are too often, these days, when he gently reminds him, “You’ve had a hard night. I’m supposed to be helping you relax, remember?” 

Keith’s smile is wry and fleeting, half-there and gone. “You’re helping,” he says, settling a hand on the base of Lance’s neck, fingers brushing the strands of his hair there. “But. Okay. I get it. I mean, you probably don’t want to kiss me right now anyway.” 

“What? Why would you say that?” That line reappears, scrunching in confusion. Like he really doesn’t know where Keith could have pulled that conclusion from. It’s cute, even if it does make Keith’s chest twinge a little with subtle guilt and self-disgust. 

“Lance, you don’t have to pretend you don’t know. I know I’m not exactly—an _attractive_ person, right now.” 

The line between Lance’s brows smooths out into a small, unhappy frown, pulling at the corners of his mouth. “That’s not true,” he says. He lifts a hand from Keith’s back to bring up to his face brushing back the hair that’s fallen in his eyes. “You’re always beautiful, Keith.” 

Lots of people in Keith’s past called him beautiful. He thinks, then, that the word should have a negative connotation attached to it—it always did, before. Being _beautiful_ has never been a good thing, and it’s certainly never done anything good for him. But the way Lance says it, it doesn’t bring that natural rise of prickling fear to his skin. It makes him wonder if maybe Lance is talking about some other kind of beauty. Something Keith doesn’t and can’t possibly understand. 

He must be, anyway. There’s a reason why Keith doesn’t look in the mirror anymore, and it doesn’t have to do with the fact that the one in his bathroom is still broken. 

“Whatever you say.” He brushes his thumb over one of the corners of Lance’s mouth, feeling the way it only deepens at Keith’s unspirited response. But he doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to be the reason for any more of Lance’s unhappiness, so even though he maybe shouldn’t, he leans in to kiss him again. Soft, chaste—he thinks Lance probably doesn’t want it to last for very long, so it’s only a moment before he pulls away, quietly says against his mouth: “Thank you.” 

“For what?” Lance’s brows crease again; he genuinely doesn’t know. Keith’s heart clenches again. Lance is such a _good_ person. 

“For being here. You don’t . . . Lance, you don’t have to do any of this. You don’t _have_ to be here. But you are. So just—thank you.” 

Lance’s mouth tenses again, and Keith can feel it, where his hand still rests on his cheek. He looks like he wants to say something, to argue, maybe, but he doesn’t. After a moment he relaxes, this small sigh unearthing itself from deep within his chest as he nods, leans further back into the pilot’s seat. He pulls Keith with him, gently nudging until he’s sitting sideways in his lap and they can both look out at the stars. Keith rests his head on Lance’s shoulder and does just that: they’re in a different place from the night before, from a week ago, a _year_ ago, but the stars always look the same, like this. It’s a small, needed comfort, when everything else in their lives is always changing. 

Lance is warm, the feel of his breathing beneath Keith steady and reliable. He listens to the sound of it, and while he doesn’t let sleepiness take hold of him again, he closes his eyes and lets himself feel _safe._ It’s the first time in a long time that he lets his muscles fully unclench, wind down from their state of ceaseless vigilance. 

He can almost swear that, even though it’s impossible, he can feel something quiet nudging at the corners of his mind. Something soft and hesitant, persistent but gentle. And it’s familiar, unmistakable— _impossible._

It’s Red, purring an old, familiar promise. _Hey—I’m still here. I’m always here._

  
  


____

  
  


“Hmm. This is strange,” Allura says, staring intently at whatever she has pulled up on the holoscreens. Keith, from his slouched position in the red paladin’s chair, flicks his gaze across the bridge to her. Pidge, sitting on the desk right in front of the red paladin’s chair, pokes her nose up from her laptop for the first time since she slinked in to find Keith. 

“What’s strange, Princess?” Coran curiously asks, catching her remark as he enters the room. He’s the only other person on the castle right now: Lance, Hunk and Shiro are out on a field mission, finding some kind of mystical rock to secure an alliance with the Obb-leques. 

“It appears we have received some kind of . . . invitation. To a celebration of this planet’s one year anniversary of pushing the Galra Empire out of their system. Coran—it appears that the Acraiians defeated the Galra on their planet _by themselves._ Voltron has never answered any distress calls from them.” 

“Hmm.” Coran comes up to her shoulder to take a look at whatever she’s reading, and in the end, appears to come to the same conclusion. “I see. That is very strange indeed. But not unwelcome! This indicates they have an incredibly strong military. _And_ they seek to ally themselves with us, which is always a positive.” 

“I suppose . . . yes,” Allura muses. “It says here that the celebrations are scheduled for an entire movement. Do you think, perhaps, the others would be up for a slight vacation?” 

“Vacation? Sign me _up,”_ Pidge declares, shutting her laptop with a quiet _snap_ of finality. “The universe knows we all deserve it. We _need it.”_ Her eyes dart to Keith, and he isn’t sure if it’s intentional or not, but he picks up what she doesn’t say all the same. _Keith needs it. Look at him._

Allura and Coran do, in fact, turn their gazes on him. “What do you think?” Allura asks him. The strange thing is, even though Keith is off paladin duties and has barely felt like a person these past few weeks, Allura still sounds like she cares about his input. It’s true that whatever he says most likely won’t impact her final decision, but it matters to her all the same. She might even be hoping for some sort of feeling from him, _some_ kind of reaction, even if it’s just to say he hates the idea of being away from the castle for an entire week. 

Keith hates the idea of being away from the castle for an entire week. He shifts his gaze to the bridge floor, smooth blue metal, and says, “Whatever you think is best.” 

Even though he isn’t looking at her, he can almost _feel_ the weight of the tense frown that turns down the corners of Allura’s mouth. “Keith—” she begins, but doesn’t get to complete the thought, because the bridge doors open again and the three paladins that complete their team spill through. 

Keith straightens up in his seat, relief immediately pouring into him the moment he catches sight of Lance. He knows it’s stupid, because he’s around Lance almost _all the time_ these days, in the most literal sense of the phrase, but he still finds himself growing anxious whenever Lance isn’t within the same general space as him. There was a foolish, childish part of him that had worried, saying goodbye to Lance this morning in Red’s hangar, that maybe Lance wasn’t going to come back. 

“Boys,” Allura says, blinking in surprise as she turns to greet them. “I wasn’t expecting you back for quite some more time.” 

“Yeah, we got out early. The rock was like, _super_ easy to find. And then we stayed for pie,” Hunk says with a shrug. Pidge perks up, finally curious enough to leave Keith’s space, hopping down from the desk and wandering over to Hunk to interrogate him on the alien pie. “You’d better have brought me a slice,” she’s saying, and Keith witnesses all of this happen with a vague sense of disconnection—like he isn’t really part of this, like maybe he’s dreaming it. Except, Keith’s dreams are never so unassuming and innocuous. 

And then Lance is coming over to crouch on the floor in front of where he’s sitting, and Keith snaps back into his body at once. Lance is holding a small bouquet of violet flowers. Violet in color, not genus—Keith isn’t quite sure what type of flower to compare it to, because it’s certainly not like any kind he’s ever seen before. But they are undeniably beautiful, with large, intentionally drooping petals. “Those are pretty,” he says. 

Lance smiles, obviously pleased by Keith’s approval. “Yeah? I saw a street vendor selling them and I was like, I _have_ to get some of those. They’re called _eternal blossoms,_ because apparently when you give them to someone you love, that love keeps them alive for as long as the love exists. Isn’t that so romantic? And like, there were different colors, but I saw the purple and thought those made the most sense, because you and I are the blue and red paladins, right? Or maybe you think that’s stupid. I could totally go back for another color if you want—” 

“Wait.” A sick feeling rises, unbidden, swirling from Keith’s chest up to his head. He’s a little dizzy, gripping the arm of the chair to hold himself steady. “You—you want to _give me_ these?” 

Lance falters, his smile flickering a little as he realizes Keith isn’t as excited about the flowers’ romantic nature as he is. “Well, yeah,” he says. “Do you . . . do you not like them? Or are you allergic? Because if you are that’s fi—” 

“Why?” 

He thinks that neither of them is prepared for the cold, steely way he says the single word. He thinks they’re less prepared for how he continues, the words feeling thick in his throat, his face feeling suddenly hot as he forces himself to choke out: _“Why._ Are you _giving me_ these?” 

“I . . .” Lance is searching his face, eyes flickering over every part of him, trying to figure out where things went wrong. Keith himself is too shaken, too nauseous and out of place to be much help in the way of explanation. 

“I just thought—I mean, I thought it would be . . . nice? And romantic. Just, I know you’ve been having a hard time, and I wanted to . . . to give you something nice,” Lance says, still searching, still trying to _figure him out._ The worst thing is, Keith thinks if he had enough of the pieces, he could probably click it all together. Keith is blinking rapidly against the heat behind his eyes, clenching his hands on the armrests of the red paladin chair so they won’t tremble. 

“Do you want something?” he whispers. He feels like he can’t _breathe._ He closes his eyes, trying to remember for the millionth time in his life how to coax air into his lungs, so caught up in it that he misses the way understanding dawns in Lance’s expression, morphs into horrified regret before settling into forced, steady calm. 

“No, Keith. Keith, that’s not it _at all._ Listen to me—this isn’t . . . this isn’t a _transaction._ You can take the flowers, or you can choose not to take the flowers, but at the end of the day, that’s _all_ they are. I got them for you because I love you, and for no other reason. That’s _all.”_

It’s the sincerity in Lance’s voice that draws him back—that makes him snap back into himself, realizing _just how much_ he’s messed up, all at once. He stares at the flowers still held loosely in Lance’s hands, little more than an afterthought now, and feels all of the horror and regret and _shame_ build up in him as he remembers that this is _Lance—_ Lance isn’t _like that._ Lance doesn’t do nice things for bad reasons; he does nice things because he’s a _nice person._ He’s the kind of boyfriend who brings Keith _flowers_ because he thinks they’re _pretty_ and _romantic—_ because he _loves him._

And Keith, for however short a span of time it was, _forgot_ that. 

The acidic self-horror and hatred bursts inside of him, then: dams collapsing, skyscrapers tumbling, the sun blotting out as this awful _darkness_ overtakes his entire body. He sits there in the pool of shadows of his own creation as reminders of all his shortcomings and mistakes and lack of value flash before him; he remembers that he doesn’t deserve Lance, that _this_ is why, because when it all comes down to it Lance is kind and Keith doesn’t _deserve_ his kindness, he’s been taking advantage of it, of _Lance,_ because he’ll never be able to reciprocate and understand these kinds of gestures the way _anyone else_ would, everything is _wrong_ with him but Lance is perfect, Lance is _everything,_ and that’s why—

That’s why. 

“You have to stop,” Keith tells him, in a voice that’s defeated, _devastated. It’s all over now, isn’t it?_ He can feel it, can feel the indicative _sorrow_ swelling up in his lungs to confirm what he should’ve already known. “You have to stop loving me, _now,_ so it—so it won’t hurt so much later when it’s ruined. I—I’ve _already ruined it._ Lance, you have to _stop.”_

“I . . . _Keith—”_

But Keith can’t stay here and listen to him; he made that mistake before, and _look_ where that’s gotten them. It’s more heartache than he can _take,_ and he can’t _do this—_

With shaky, unseeing hands he pushes Lance away, stumbling to his feet and _away,_ away from Lance, away from the bridge, away from the muffled cloud of other voices calling for him in alarm as he makes himself disappear before anyone can trap him there. No one follows him—maybe they’re all in shock, or maybe they’re all in agreement, but whatever it is, Keith is grateful as he spills unhalted down the hallways before finally bolting into the safe seclusion of his room, locking the door behind him and then falling into his blankets like they will be enough to protect him from the awful storm going on _inside_ him. 

It’s not enough—the blankets _smell like Lance,_ and Keith bites his lip on his tears before remembering that there’s no _point_ in trying to hold them back anymore. So then he cries, still as silently as he can, muffling his voice in the thick blankets because even though no one is here to hear, old habits die _hard,_ or they don’t die at all, and Keith is still the _exact_ same person he was before. No matter how hard he’s tried to convince himself otherwise—even after all this time, _this_ is all he really is. 

He doesn’t know how much time passes in the dark, like this. Maybe only minutes, but it feels like an eternity of grieving. It _feels_ like dying, he thinks, but then he thinks that he doesn’t really know if it does or not, because he’s never actually died before. But it _hurts,_ it hurts like everything is ending, like this is where everything falls apart beyond his best attempts to hold it together, and he wonder why it couldn’t have just ended years ago like it was _supposed_ to so that he could have avoided all of this. 

What was the _point_ of adding on all this extra pain? he wonders, and he doesn’t know, he doesn’t _know._ He doesn’t know why he’s still here. He doesn’t know why he keeps trying, when everything _always_ ends up like this. 

He wishes Lance was here. He wishes that he could let himself have Lance, hold onto him, _keep him here._ But he _can’t_ have Lance. It was wrong of him to ever think that he could. 

And he’s so caught up, so consumed by this awful _monstrous_ sadness that he almost misses it: the quiet _whoosh_ of the door opening, of footsteps padding into the room in the dark. The sound of a sigh, so achingly familiar that Keith’s heart _twists_ in pain, before he feels the weight of someone settling onto the edge of the bed. The light on the nightstand flicks on, flooding the room with soft yet still blinding light. Keith closes his eyes. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispers. He couldn’t speak any louder if he tried—his voice is completely shot. 

“Keith.” Lance’s voice, though quiet, isn’t a whisper. It’s firm as steel, resolute; he almost sounds mad, and all of Keith’s limbs freeze at the sound of just his name. He holds his breath without realizing he’s doing it, heart as heavy as lead, weighted with dread. 

“I love you, and I respect you, with _everything_ in me,” Lance says, each word slow and careful, and Keith grips the blankets around him tighter because he knows there’s a _but_ coming. And it does—“But,” he exhales, “you absolutely _do not_ get to make my decisions for me. You don’t get to tell me I should break up with you, in front of _all_ of our friends, just because you think I shouldn’t be with you. Those are _my_ choices, and maybe you don’t understand why I’ve chosen to be here, but I _am_ here. And I know things are hard right now, but I need you to respect that.” 

Keith opens his eyes only to stare blankly at the ceiling. He can’t shift his gaze over to look at Lance. He can’t look at him. His eyes feel gritty and dry, but somehow, he finds them burning again, like the tears are about to start back up. He hopes Lance will be gone before they start. 

“You’re _going_ to leave. You . . .” His voice shudders, and he has to stop a moment to recollect himself before forcing himself on, “you’re only saying all of this because you don’t k- _know._ Why you should leave. Why I’m too—messed up. You aren’t going to want me anymore.” 

Lance exhales again, and Keith feels the bed dip a little as Lance shifts himself more to face him. Keith still won’t look at him, but he can feel his gaze burning on him anyway. He can see in his peripheral vision the way Lance lifts a hand, reaches out like he wants to touch him, and then thinks better of it. The way he hesitates, hands falling to his lap, the sound of his steady, measured breathing the only one he can hear. Until he says—

“I already know, Keith. I know what you’ve been trying to hide. I . . . I _know.”_

Keith just closes his eyes again, shakes his head. “You don’t. Whatever you _think—”_

“It’s not something I _think,_ Keith. It’s something _you_ _told me.”_

Keith’s mind stutters at that. He doesn’t—know what Lance is talking about. “I . . . what?” 

Lance takes another deep breath, and suddenly, Keith feels sick. Whatever Lance is trying to tell him, he’s _struggling,_ and now Keith isn’t sure that he wants to hear it. There’s this awful feeling creeping up from the pit of his stomach, something telling him: _this is bad, this is worse than you think, this is going to_ hurt. 

“That—the night you got drunk. The first time. You found me in the ballroom after you’d already had a few drinks, and you wanted to dance,” Lance starts, words already shaky even though Keith doesn’t know where this is going. He _doesn’t,_ even though there’s this niggling voice in the back of his mind saying _you do, you absolutely know._ A bolt of fear courses through him. He doesn’t want to be right. 

“So we—we danced. And then,” Lance pauses again, breathing in, breathing out. Keith tries his hardest to breathe with him, because it’s getting more difficult to remember how on his own. “You told me you loved me. And you said—you said I was the best boyfriend, and you _knew that,_ because you used to have the _worst_ boyfriend.” 

Keith stops breathing. 

Lance persists—Keith can’t stop him, wouldn’t be able to gather enough air to tell him to _stop_ even if his head wasn’t suddenly spinning—, “And I asked you what you were talking about. So you _told me._ You said—” Lance cuts himself off again, and this time the breath that leaves him isn’t so steady, and he sniffs, like he’s trying to forcibly hold back tears. “You said that I’m a good boyfriend because I’m _nice_ to you. And because I _treat you_ like a _person._ And because I don’t—because I don’t _make you have sex with me.”_

Keith’s lungs kickstart. Pushing himself up so that he’s sitting, he runs a hand through his hair, heart in his throat as he tries to force down the sudden _panic._ His voice is tight with it when he forces out: “People say a lot of dumb, meaningless shit when they’re drunk, Lance.” 

He can’t avoid looking at Lance anymore, but he _hates_ what he sees when he does. Lance isn’t holding back tears—he’s _crying,_ silent tears welling up and spilling unchecked, frustration and desperation and _anguish_ streaking all over his face. It’s awful to see, even worse because it’s _Keith’s_ fault, and he can’t—he doesn’t know how to _fix this._ He can’t fix this. 

“Yeah, people say meaningless shit,” Lance says, voice still thick, eyes still wet. The tears spill and spill, and he doesn’t lift a hand to wipe them away. And he’s looking at Keith through all of this, and even through all of his emotions he still manages to somehow hold onto his sense of calmness, unwavering, “but this isn’t _meaningless,_ Keith, it’s _important,_ and we both _know that._ And I-I’m _sorry_ it had to come out this way—I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you, the morning after you told me, and I know I probably _really_ fucked up there. But I just—I didn’t _want_ this to be another thing that was taken from you. I wanted you to tell me yourself. I wanted you to _trust me._ But you haven’t really been giving me a lot of options lately.” Lance sniffs, finally bringing the back of his hand up to swipe, frustrated, at the tears. It’s a useless gesture in the end—more fall to replace them instantly. “And you just keep getting so much _worse,_ like—like you’re _sick,_ and I’ve been feeling so _guilty_ for keeping this from you because I think it’s making you sicker worrying about if I found out and I can’t—we can’t _be_ like this. We have to _talk_ about this. _You_ have to _talk about this.”_

Keith’s own vision is beginning to blur, but he refuses to let his own tears fall. He shouldn’t even _have_ any tears left, he thinks distantly, as he stares down at the sheets and clutches them tightly in his hands. It shouldn’t hurt _this much_ to hold them back. And it’s so _stupid,_ the reason why he feels like crying, because the most important and terrifying thing about all of this is that Lance _knows,_ and apparently he’s known for a _while,_ he’s known one of the worst, most awful things about Keith for _weeks,_ now, but the only thing Keith can really focus on, the thing he asks, through blurred eyes and a voice that crackles with static fear is—“Are you going to break up with me?” 

What he really means to ask is: _why haven’t you done it yet?_ But he thinks he’s even more afraid of that answer. 

_“No,_ Keith. I am not breaking up with you. I’m not going anywhere, unless that’s something _you_ want,” Lance says, somehow managing to sound firm even through his tears. “I _love you.”_

And then he—he _reaches_ for Keith, in the way he’s done a million times before; a million times before, Keith has fallen into his arms and let him hold him and tried to believe in the things Lance told him when he did. But this time he _flinches_ away from him, so hard that it’s impossible to hide, and even though he regrets it immediately, it’s too late to take it back. He watches Lance’s hands fall back into his lap, watches pain twist up his features and feels the most helpless he has in a long time—because he can’t do _anything_ about it. All he can do, in his storm of fear and horror and exhaustion, is make it worse. 

“Lance,” he says, _aching_ at the way his name cuts like glass, at all of the awful, _awful_ feelings in his chest. “Get out of my room.” 

Lance freezes. Surprise flickers across his tear-stricken face before giving onto abrupt, lingering _hurt._ “What?” 

“Get _out,”_ he repeats, voice cracking as he shuts his eyes, the tears he’s been fighting finally managing to present themselves, pooling in the corners. “Just—I _need_ you to leave. I need a _minute_ to myself. Please, _please_ get out of my room.” 

Lance lingers a moment, hesitating, and Keith can’t _stand_ the feeling of his gaze on him, even though he can’t see it. He has to press his mouth into a thin line to keep it from trembling, silently praying: _please, please, please._

For once, whatever force that oversees answering prayers listens to him. The bed shifts once again as Lance stands, and Keith keeps his head bowed and his eyes closed so that he won’t have to watch him go. It’s only when he hears the door shut behind him that he allows the last intact parts of himself to fall apart. 

When he cries, he does it in the way he’d learned to a lifetime ago: muffled by hands into complete silence, contained even in its infinite, _shattering_ sorrow. Because even now, even though he knows there’s no one around to hear him, even though he’s safer here, alone in his bed on the Castle of Lions, than he’s been for most of his life—even now, the habits he learned as a child refuse to ever truly die. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_On all of the coldest, loneliest nights that Keith had imagined coming home, he had never imagined it would be like this:_

_Breaking in through the back door with one of Isabella’s hairpins while she holds the flashlight, anxiously glancing back into the overgrown backyard every few breaths like something is going to jump out at them. Sneaking in, burglars in the night all the way to the dark beanies that cover both of their heads. The floorboards creak from old age when finally,_ finally, _Keith takes his first step back into the home of his childhood. The place of his innocence. The last place he had truly been happy._

_He doesn’t dare turn on the lights, but he doesn’t need them to tell that everything is exactly as it was the last time he was here, down to the ancient, faded curtains that fail to keep moonlight from filtering in through the window over the kitchen sink. Isabella is a silent figure at his back, shutting the door behind him so they can no longer hear the sound of crickets and cicadas emitting their nightly calls. The house smells musty, the air stale like no one has been here to breathe life into it in centuries._

_It’s only been four years. It feels like so much longer._

_Creeping through, here: the hallway is still lined with picture frames. Keith stops and stares for a moment at one, Isabella’s flashlight lingering on it when she notices it holds his attention. It’s his dad, back in his young adulthood before Keith was even a possibility on his mind, dressed in his fireman uniform and grinning widely into the camera. Keith’s grandmother had taken that photo, he remembers his dad telling him once. He never got to meet her. She died before he was born._

_“You look a lot like him,” Isabella whispers after a long moment, and Keith just snorts, because_ yeah, right. _He knows she means literally, and in that sense he supposes she’s right, but whenever Keith looks at the memories of his dad—the tangible ones and the ones that only live in his head—he sees someone invincible. Someone who could take on the entire world and_ win. _Someone strong. Someone brave. Keith looks nothing like him._

_Down the hall now, to the stairway in the foyer. His dad always said this house was too big for just two people, but it had belonged to his parents, and his grandparents before them, and he couldn’t bear to part with it after they died. (When Keith turns eighteen, it’s going to belong to him. If he makes it that long.) But Keith always loved the space, loved the wide openness of everything. He loved the view from the top of the stairs, looking down onto the floor below. As a kid, it had seemed like the highest place a person could ever stand. He used to pretend he was on top of the world._

_His room is the one at the end of the hall. The doorknob cries out an exclamation of its old age when he turns it, swinging it open onto the last place he had ever slept soundly. His bed is the first thing to catch his attention: positioned right beside the window, so Keith can see every detail in the moonlight, down to the little UFOs and spaceships printed across his sheets. He pads over to it, each step feeling tentative and monumental, but when he sinks down at the foot of it, nothing changes. He doesn’t have some grand rush of relief fill him at finally returning home. He doesn’t feel anything at all, except for maybe the deep, permanent sadness that came to live with him when he left here. It’s the only thing that’s remained the same, all these years._

_He feels the bed dip as Isabella sits down next to him. She says nothing when he reaches up to swipe the silent tears from his eyes when they appear. “This was a stupid thing to do,” he whispers, “I’m sorry for wasting your time.”_

_“We have nothing but time to waste,” Isabella replies. She sits there with him for another moment, and when it becomes apparent that he’s not moving any time soon, she stands up again and makes her way over to the shelves on Keith’s walls. They’re lined with more photos and old school awards and small stuffed animals. Meaningless shit, really. All of the stuff that’s left in this house means_ nothing, _because the thing that means the most is gone._

_He’s never getting that back. This house is not the home he remembers._

_After a while, he gathers all of that misery back into himself enough to be able to stand, and they move on. Back into the hall, but only to the next door to the left. His dad’s room._

_If there’s anything worth salvaging, Keith knows that he’s going to find it in here. Isabella’s loyal footsteps follow him like a second heartbeat as he steps into the room, and the sight of a room that’s as familiar as his own greets him. There’s a lump in his throat as he notes the quilt on the bed, the pattern generic and unremarkable, knowing the fabric is even more scratchy and unappealing to the touch. He never understood his dad’s love for the worn thing, but he still walks forward to run it between his fingers anyway._

_Isabella is opening the doors of the closet, nothing more than detached curiosity guiding her actions as she swipes her flashlight across the space. Keith feels another twinge of guilt for bringing her here. She’d never say, but he wonders if this is hard for her. Isabella has never had a home to want to come back to. Isabella’s life has always been awful._

_He’s rubbing his past good fortune in her face, being here. That must make him a really shitty person. The worst._

_Isabella’s focus fixes on something near the back of the closet. “Woah, check it out,” she says, and a moment later she’s tugging something out with her free hand. Spinning to show him, displaying a swath of fabric that catches red in the flashlight beam._

_“Oh,” Keith says. That lump is still in his throat, and it hurts just to say that much, but he tells her anyway, “That was my dad’s old motorcycle jacket. When he was a teenager.”_

_“It’s pretty cool,” Isabella says, offhand, which from her means she actually thinks it’s pretty cool. It’s when she’s pretending to care that she doesn’t actually, but she never talks like that to Keith. For some reason, she always seems to really care about what Keith has to say, even though most of what he says means nothing._

_“My dad loved that jacket. All of his pictures from when he was young, he’s wearing it.”_

_“Yeah?” Isabella glances from the jacket to Keith, then back. “You should take it, then.”_

_“What?”_

_“Take it,” she repeats, and punctuates this by tossing the jacket at him. Instinctively, Keith brings his hands up to catch it. Eyeing it dubiously, he shakes his head. “I dunno, Isabella . . .”_

_“Why not? If he loved it so much, he’d want you to have it.”_

_“Well yeah, but.” Keith bites his lip. Hesitantly, he smooths his fingers over the worn leather. “But it’s important. What if—what if I lose it? I’ve lost so much other stuff over the years. And I can’t even fit it yet.”_

_“You’ve held onto your mom’s knife,” Isabella points out. “Anyway, you’ll grow into it. Look, I’m not saying you have to take it. But I think he’d want you to. And why shouldn’t you? If I had someone who loved me that much, and they left something behind that I could carry, like they were still with me . . . I’d want it.”_

_Another stab of guilt pierces his throat. But also . . . Keith stares down at the jacket, the one his dad used to wear all the time, the one that must be filled with thousands of memories, the one his dad had_ worn, _and carried, and loved. He decides that Isabella is right. He misses his dad too much to leave here without something of his, anyway. Wasn’t that the reason why he’d come?_

_Keith slowly, carefully slips one arm, and then the other into the sleeves. It hangs off of him, as expected, with the sleeves continuing on past his fingertips. But he can roll them up, so it’s not so bad. The jacket smells dusty and tickles his nose a little when he breathes in, but there’s also the faintest,_ impossible _whiff of his dad’s old, spicy cologne. It makes Keith’s eyes prickle all over again._

_He looks up, and Isabella is staring at him. When she catches his gaze on her, she nods. “It suits you.”_

_“Thanks,” he whispers. He wants to say he’s sorry. He wants to say he wishes she had someone good to miss, someone who left her something like a jacket to carry with her. But Isabella’s always hated pity, and it wouldn’t do any good to say. So he doesn’t say anything else._

_In the morning, they’ll continue on. Neither of them is really sure what they’re doing or where they’re going, at this point, but they can’t stay in any place for too long. Still, Keith asks Isabella if they can stay, just one night—tries not to sound like he’s pleading, but knows he is. But she says, “Yeah,” so they climb onto his dad’s old bed, unfold that musty, scratchy quilt, and curl up underneath it to try to sleep._

_It’s just one last night. One last night to pretend that everything that’s happened to him never did; one last night to pretend he’ll wake up in the morning and his dad will be here beside him, and there will be sunlight filtering through the curtains, and warmth in his heart that can’t be doused out or taken away, and he’ll be_ home. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith barely has to knock once before the door flies open, and Lance is standing there, like he’s been waiting all night for him like this. His eyes are red even in the dim blue light, and there’s so much _guilt_ spilling out of Keith at the mere sight of him, spreading throughout his limbs like liquidated lead, like the most potent anguish in the world. And he doesn’t deserve Lance—he doesn’t deserve his goodness, or his patience or his forgiveness, and definitely not his love—but he still has to _try._

“I’m sorry,” he says. That alone is shaky and fragile like ripped, wet paper held together with safety pins—an impossible combination, doomed to destruction from its birth. Lance’s own face is carefully blank as he waits for the rest of it to come. _I’m sorry_ alone doesn’t cut it anymore. Keith knows that. 

“I—I know I keep messing up. And I know I’m so—so _horrible_ to be around, sometimes. And I know it’s hard for you, and I know I’ve hurt you, and I don’t— _deserve_ you, any of you, and if you don’t want to give me any more, I understand, because you’ve already given me more than I ever could have asked. But—” Keith takes a shaky breath in, hand gripped around the doorframe because it’s the only way he’s managed to stay on his feet this long, looking into Lance’s darkly shining blue eyes and feeling the smallest relief that he’s out of tears, because the sight of Lance on the verge of them would send him back over the edge if he wasn’t. 

“Do you think—is there _any_ way I could convince you to stay? You don’t even . . . you don’t have to love me anymore, if you don’t want to, and I get it if you don’t, or you won’t. But I—I just need— _please_ stay, Lance. Please just—please don’t leave.” His voice is little more than a whisper by the end, cracking at the edges and caving in at the center, and it _hurts_ to look at Lance but he doesn’t look away, resolving himself to stay on his feet no matter what Lance says, even though he thinks if Lance were to close the door in his face, he would collapse and _never_ be able to rise again. 

Lance doesn’t close the door in his face. Lance covers the hand Keith has clenched around the frame with his own, and the warmth that pulses off of him is so _much_ that it hurts, but Keith doesn’t pull away, and he doesn’t flinch when Lance brings his hand to his mouth, the soft _forgiveness_ on his lips the kind that could shatter entire universes. Keith feels like _everything_ in him is breaking open, feels like Lance can see everything inside of him finally peeled back, laid bare in all of its horrible reality. 

And yet, he says—

“I will _never_ choose to walk away from you. And I’ll never stop loving you, either.” And then he just _looks_ at him for a long moment, with exhaustion creeping in around the edges but his unmistakable, undying love that Keith will _never_ understand right there, plain to see. He doesn’t _get it._

When the moment ends, Lance sighs, shoulders slumping as he finally falls prey to the weariness tugging at him. He steps back to allow Keith into the room, and when Keith just stares dumbly, he reaches to tug him. Gently, hands reeling him in by his arms until he’s falling right into his chest. 

“Come to bed, Keith,” he whispers into his hair. His hands are steady, unfailing, where they come up to support him over his spine. “We’ll talk about it in the morning. Just please, _please_ get some sleep.” 

And Keith isn’t sure if it’s the fact that he’s with Lance, or the fact that Lance _knows,_ now, or the fact that he’s just so exhausted that his brain doesn’t have any leftover energy to devote to terrorizing him when his eyes slip shut—but he lets Lance cover him with his blankets and his body, breathes him in where Lance holds him against his chest, and sleeps. 

  
  


_____

  
  


They don’t get to talk about it in the morning. In the morning, Allura calls for an early meeting to discuss the plans for the next week on Acra, and though Lance tries to persuade Keith to go back to sleep, he’s wide awake now, and his mind is the clearest it’s been in weeks. So he goes, and he thinks that everyone is a little shocked to see him, but they don’t comment on his presence as being anything out of the ordinary. (He’s grateful, even though there’s still a silently defensive part of him that protests that he shouldn’t _have_ to be. It wasn’t that long ago that Keith was here for every single meeting, every single morning.) 

Technically, it’s not going to be a vacation. There are still alliance deals to be struck and meetings to be had; a lot of technical, diplomatic necessities that can’t be avoided if they’re going to be partnered with this planet. But Allura tells them that once that’s out of the way, they’re free to do whatever they like with the rest of the movement. And isn’t _that_ a concept, the idea of freedom for the better part of a week? He can see everyone else wilting a little with relief by the time she reaches the end of the briefing. It sounds, to their war-weary ears, like something that’s almost too good to be true. 

They land in a varga, so everyone disperses to pack their things. Keith himself doesn’t take long: all he needs are a few changes of clothes, his toothbrush, and after a long moment of deliberation, his knife. He feels a little ridiculous, digging it out of the closest just so he can bury it beneath the clothes in his bag after not touching it in so long, but he can’t quell the anxiety that rises in him at the thought of leaving the castle without it. He tells himself it’s fine, since he’s always carried it everywhere anyway, and as long as it stays in the bag, it’s fine. Then he zips it shut, slings it over his shoulder, and goes across the hall to wait for Lance. 

Sitting on the edge of his bed, watching Lance methodically pack all of his toiletries through the open doorway, something catches his attention in his peripheral. It’s only a slight tilt of his head to fully focus on the flowers at Lance’s bedside. Familiar violet blossoms in full bloom, stretching and undulating from the edges of the vase they’d been put in like they’re reaching out for him. There’s a moment of hesitation where Keith stares at them before he gives in, reaching back to run one of the delicate petals between his fingertips. 

They really are so beautiful. Lance had tried to give him these. There’s a lump in his throat as he thinks about that, not knowing how _not_ to feel awful about ruining it. 

He doesn’t notice that Lance has come back into his room until he clears his throat. “They’re still yours, if you want them,” he quietly says. 

Keith freezes, hand still hovering over the flowers. “Are you sure?” he whispers back. He blinks away the sudden heat behind his eyes. “You don’t have to. Give them to me, I mean.” 

“I got them for you, Keith. They belong to you, even if they’re sitting in my room. They’re _yours.”_

“Oh.” Keith doesn’t know what to say. He bites his lip, and after a moment, tears his gaze away to meet Lance’s. “Thank you,” he says. 

Lance nods, but his lips are pursed like he doesn’t really know what to say. It’s a rare thing for Lance, and Keith knows that it’s his own fault, so he carefully picks up the flowers and goes back to his room so that Lance can have a moment to himself. The flowers look no less beautiful, sitting on his own nightstand, but Keith steps back and stares for a moment, feeling strangely vulnerable at the sight of something so noticeably valuable in his space. He thinks they’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever owned. Emotion sticks in his throat, and he doesn’t try to name what it is. 

But it stays with him, even when he’s walking with Lance to meet the others in the hangars. It’s there when Allura nods to them from in front of Blue, eyes light in a way that’s become increasingly rare for her as she asks them, “Are you ready to go?” 

They only take two of the lions—Blue and Red—and everyone besides Keith and Pidge decides to ride down with Allura. It’s a short trip, so short that it’s like whiplash when that feeling that was slowly unfurling in Keith’s chest suddenly vanishes as they glide into Acra’s atmosphere. It’s replaced with chilling, biting anxiety, and he has no immediately discernible explanation for it: for the way his fingers suddenly dig into the back of Red’s pilot seat, for the way he suddenly feels so _sick_ with icy cold that he thinks he might collapse. And then, before he can get his bearings, Red is landing on the surface of this planet, and her jaw is opening to allow them outside, and they spill out into one of the most unearthly, _beautiful_ places they’ve ever been. 

In front of them, a panorama of a city composed entirely of colored, shimmering glass catches on the light of the rising sun, dazzling in their eyes. It stretches beyond the lake that separates them from it, it’s surface also like the sheen of silvery, implacable glass. Glistening, the soft waves that tumble onto the rocky shore kicking up a spray like a handful of thrown shards. Beautiful—the way dangerous things are beautiful. 

That cold, uneasy feeling spreads just that much farther across his ribs. And that’s before he notices the figure waiting for them at the shore: a graceful, ethereal woman, her pale green hair flowing behind her like a cape as she takes a step forward. Her face is smooth of all emotion, skin so pale that they can see the green veins beneath as she approaches them. It, too, has that same glossy, glass sheen to it. But nothing about her looks delicate or breakable. In fact, looking at her sends a chill of inexplicable _horror_ down Keith’s spine. 

Once she is close enough for them to be able to hear her, she drops into a practiced, gliding curtsy. As she straightens, her mouth curves up into a smile: lovely, breathtaking, enticing. Something about it is wrong. Something is tugging at all of Keith’s senses, insistent of this single fact. Something is _wrong._

He wants to go home. He’s been here for barely two minutes, and he already wants to leave. When he looks to the others, though, he sees none of the same trepidation on their faces. In fact, they look . . . drawn in. Caught up in beauty and the promise of an easy alliance, of a week spent on _this_ planet that is, at a single glimpse, one of the most alluring places they’ve ever been, in the entirety of their Voltron days. 

Allura steps forward, hands relaxed easily at her sides as she mirrors the woman’s gesture. “Hello,” she introduces herself. Something about the air of this planet makes her voice sound clearer, almost crystalline. “I am Princess Allura. This is my team.” 

“Allura.” The woman’s smile grows, twists that awful feeling in Keith’s stomach with it. Her glowing, pale gaze passes over each of them, a sort of casual glance-over until she lands on Keith. When she stops on him, her smile freezes into place, and it freezes his heart along with it. 

“I am Queen Lyria,” she says—intended, for all appearances, for the entire group of newcomers. But Keith knows, _knows_ her focus is directed on him, knows it like the homesick feeling in his chest that never goes away, when she continues, in a voice as smooth and recondite as the surface of the lake just beyond them, “I am eager to become familiar with you, over the next movement you are with us. Come,” and now she turns back to Allura, and Allura is still smiling so easily, but Keith _knows_ he isn’t imagining the coldness in this queen’s eyes. Something is wrong about this place. Something is—

“Let us discuss the mission of your Voltron, and if our causes align, we will see to a swift and merry alliance between us.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy. we're getting into the deep end now. but there's something that i kinda wanted to ramble about, so i'm going to do that now. hope thats alright. 
> 
> first off, thanks so much for all of the support on this fic? like i said at the beginning, 3k is..wow? thank you, to every single one of you who's subscribed and left kudos and comments and just invested time in this in general by reading. it means a lot to me that you guys are invested in this, because i am...also, obviously, invested in this. it's important to me. and i'm glad that you guys are all here along for the ride. 
> 
> i also wanted to briefly touch on the comments because—you guys' comments are amazing, they fuel my writing, sometimes when i'm low on inspiration i come back and reread them and they make my day. and i feel kind of bad for not responding to you guys, and the thing is...i try to? but for some reason most of the time it fills me with a ridiculous amount of anxiety, so i tell myself i'll come back and reply after i've given myself some time, but then two days pass and i'm like: that's too late, they'll probably be annoyed if i reply now, i'll just leave it. and then i feel bad but i also don't know what i'd say anyway so...i'm really sorry, if you've left a comment that i never replied to? i know this probably isn't even a big deal, but i wanted to get that out there so you guys know how much i love you, even though my brain is weird sometimes. so yeah. i love you guys, and thanks again for all the time and love you've put into this <3
> 
> ALSO: there's going to be bonus content now. if you noticed this is a series now, it's because i'm going to be adding short snippets from the others' perspectives. it's a nice change of pace, i already have a fluff piece up from lance's perspective that is. so refreshing. go check it out if you need something positive after this emotional rollercoaster of a chapter lol. 
> 
> anyway, if you read all this, thanks again <3 you guys are wonderful and beautiful and i hope you're having a good day <3 <3


	10. fall into the depths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s looking at Keith again. Mouth curving in that almost-smile, not quite belonging on the otherwise blank glassiness of her face. No one speaks up to answer her question, so after a moment, she moves on, her voice ringing once again with one clear word: _“Empathy.”_
> 
> Scorn echoes in the word’s wake, the queen’s lip twisting now in mockery. “It was the magnitude with which we felt things. Once, we were like you, Princess Allura. We used to strive for peace, and despised war for its bloodshed. But valuing life and fearing for our own weakened us beneath the Galra, who felt nothing for us. So we became like them. We gained the ability to shut off our emotions entirely at will: to enter a higher state, a _better_ state, where feeling is optional—superfluous. And we overcame our oppressors through our newfound apathy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> firstly, i want to say i am. sO sorry for disappearing for so long. i mean technically its been less than two months, but that feels so long to me. the reason it's been so long is because it took me _five_ drafts to finally come up with a chapter i was happy with. i was debating whether or not i should stick to my original plot or not, because we're getting closer and closer to one of the main points that led me to write this story (can you believe we're over 120k words and i stilL haven't gotten to one of my main points??), and the closer we get, the darker it looms, and maybe it would be easier to just rework the story into something else so we can get to the happy ending faster.
> 
> in the end though, i decided to stick with my original plot. but then when i started seriously writing this chapter, i got to nearly 20k words before i could even get to two of the scenes i had planned on including. i don't doubt that it would have been at 30k if i kept going, so next chapter will also probably be gigantic. i was venting about how i make things so ridiculously long to my best friend, who beta's this fic for me, and when i told her i was cutting the chapter nearly in half she said it made her kind of sad because it's like my writing is more powerful than i am. which is kind of amusing, but also is not. it took forever to get here. 
> 
> with that said, trigger warnings for this chapter are:  
> \- vomiting  
> -mentions of a suicide attempt
> 
> as always, stay safe <3 i love you

  


The chandelier in Queen Lyria’s dining hall drips with vines of glittering gems and heavy crystals, as long as swords and sharp enough to cut. Sitting beneath it, Keith can’t help but wonder how it’s possible for it to stay tethered to the ceiling. He thinks of how easy it would be for it to fall, and the thought makes him feel uneasy. He lowers his eyes to the plate in front of him, eyes distantly following his fork as he pushes around the silvery leaves of his salad. 

  


At the head of the long glass table sits Queen Lyria, along with her closest advisor and a handful of other diplomats whose names he had forgotten the moment they were introduced. At the other end sits Allura, and from the brief glances Keith has stolen to determine her thoughts, he knows that she is  _ highly  _ intrigued by Acra and its queen. 

  


He understands why. Acra’s wealth  _ alone  _ would increase Voltron’s chances of winning this war exponentially. And that’s before taking into account their advanced medical technology and military power. 

  


If there’s ever been a time they needed to be on their best behavior to ensure an alliance, it’s now. Allura wants this alliance. Voltron may  _ need  _ this alliance. 

  


“You have a lovely home,” she says now, her voice echoing off of the stained glass walls that surround them. “Thank you for your hospitality, Your Majesty.” 

  


“Thank you as well,” Queen Lyria coolly replies. She takes a sip of wine. “Though I must also offer my apologies. It appears that I miscalculated the number of guests I would be hosting. One of my distant allies told me there were five Voltron paladins and an Altean advisor. I’m afraid I only had six rooms prepared for visitors.” 

  


“Oh, it is quite alright,” Allura says. She sets her own wine glass down, and it  _ clinks _ quietly against the dining table. “I understand that much information can become lost in translation when communicating with planets far from your own. Tell me, which ally do you speak of?” 

  


“Svlenka,” the queen says. “We have maintained a very strong alliance for hundreds of decaphoebs. At least, we had, until the Galra invasion of our planet. Communications with outside planets were cut off during that time, and only recently reestablished.” 

  


“I see.” Allura’s face creases in grave understanding before smoothing out again. “Well, in spite of the circumstances, I am glad you were able to once again connect with Svlenka, and that it has brought us together. I look forward to getting to know you and your planet better.” 

  


“Hey,” Lance murmurs, leaning so subtly into Keith’s space that the movement goes unnoticed by anyone else at the table. His eyes are fixed on Allura as she speaks, even as he continues, “You feeling okay?” 

  


Keith glances up briefly from his untouched dinner. “Yeah,” he answers, just as quiet, “Why?” 

  


Lance flicks his gaze wordlessly from Keith’s face to his plate, eyebrows creasing. 

  


Oh. Keith’s heart immediately twists up in defense, but he clamps down on it before it can rise to his tongue. He doesn’t want to fight over this—especially not here. So, “I’m fine,” he says, punctuates the words by spearing some of the salad onto his fork and taking a bite. It doesn’t taste like much, but what little flavor it  _ does  _ have is—off-putting. Which isn’t unusual in itself, since most alien food tastes unusual or  _ off _ to him in some way. But it’s enough that Keith doesn’t want to take a second bite of it. He does anyway. 

  


It’s enough to appease Lance, anyway, though his brows are still slightly creased as he turns his attention back to the diplomatic conversation at hand. Keith goes back to silently playing with his food, darting his eyes between Allura and Queen Lyria as they ping-pong the conversation back and forth. 

  


Queen Lyria is speaking, now. “I must say, I was a bit shocked to hear it, myself. The legendary Voltron has returned, and is making strides toward defeating the Galra? It sounded like a conspiracy, a hoax. It was a pleasant surprise to find that it was not. With your team, we may finally have a chance of eradicating the Galra race once and for all.” 

  


At his side, Keith sees Lance stiffen minutely. Allura shows no change in expression, aside from a slight narrowing of her eyes. She sets down her fork. 

  


“I’m afraid there may be some miscommunication,” she says, “so if I may, I’d like to make things clear now, before we proceed. Our mission is  _ not  _ to destroy the entire Galra race. We have many allies, whom we work very closely with, who oppose Zarkon’s Empire. Our fight is against tyranny—and nothing else. If you cannot accept that, I’m afraid an alliance will not work between us.” 

  


Silence rings out for a long, breath-pausing moment. The queen’s advisor breaks it, with an abrupt, grating laugh. “A Galra who opposes Zarkon?” he says, incredulous. “A Galra who does not believe in Galra supremacy and the complete subjugation of all other races? That’s preposterous. Are you all idiots?” 

  


On Keith’s other side, Pidge visibly bristles.  _ “Excuse me?”  _

  


“Apologies,” Queen Lyria says, cutting a gaze over to her advisor. “Rulan is a bit—spirited. He does not mean to offend. Though I must admit, I am inclined to agree that the idea of a non-supremecist Galra is . . . difficult to believe.” 

  


Allura clasps her hands in front of her on the table. “If you work with us, you will meet many of them,” she promises. “We work closely with an organization of underground Galra soldiers. Some of them are working within the Empire itself, risking their lives to provide us with crucial information. We value them very much.” 

  


“Indeed?” The queen raises a skeptical eyebrow. “And how are you to know they are not double agents? That they are not providing Zarkon with information about  _ your  _ plans? How am I meant to ally myself and my planet with someone who chooses to ally themselves with such . . . untrustworthy organizations?” 

  


Allura arches an inquisitive eyebrow. “Are you, like your advisor, calling us idiots, Your Majesty?” 

  


Keith sets down his own fork. He’s sat through enough conversations like this one to know it’s going to end in one of two ways, regardless of how long they beat around the issue. 

  


“Of course I am not,” the queen replies neutrally. “However, I do think that unless you could provide some sort of . . .  _ proof,  _ then I’m afraid Acra would have a difficult time accepting an . . . unreliable ally.” 

  


Allura’s brows crease slightly in the center—barely a break in the diplomatic facade, but enough. Keith’s had enough of this. 

  


“I’m Galra.” 

  


Immediately, Allura tenses, eyes flashing over to him. Everyone else stiffens as well; Lance reaches for his hand under the table, and Pidge hisses, “Keith, what are you  _ doing?”  _ But Keith’s gaze remains fixed on the Acraiian queen, even when she flicks her own inquisitive green eyes to him. Something about the way her gaze flickers over him sends a shiver down his spine. He’s only barely able to suppress it. 

  


“Is that so?” Her voice remains blank of all inflection; toneless and empty, and somehow more chilling than anger or fear. But he holds her gaze, never wavering. 

  


“Yes,” he tells her, “I’m half-Galra. And I’ve been a paladin of Voltron for three years, fighting against Zarkon alongside my team, and like Allura said, other Galra who are against the Empire. Do you need any more  _ proof  _ than that?” 

  


“Keith,” Allura lowly says. Keith finally pulls his stare away from the queen to her. 

  


“What?” he demands. “You were going to have to tell her anyway. It’s not like it’s something we try to hide.” And then, redirecting his attention to Queen Lyria once again, “Look, yeah, it’s true. I’m Galra,” he says, “but what’s  _ also  _ true is that there’s  _ nothing _ I hate more than people who torture and terrorize others for their own gain and sadistic pleasure. I’m dedicated to taking Zarkon down once and for all—and an alliance with your planet will help us to reach that goal, and probably save millions of lives, if not even more than that. But at the end of the day, if me being Galra is a dealbreaker for you, then I don’t think there’s much more I can do to change your mind.” 

  


Everyone is so quiet that if Keith tried hard enough, he would be able to pick apart every single silent exhale from his teammates. Queen Lyria herself says nothing for a long moment, her pale gaze scrutinizing like she’s trying to pick  _ Keith  _ apart. And then, finally, she says, “This is an unexpected revelation, of which I am sure many of my people will feel uneasy about. But I believe further discussion can still be had on the matter of an alliance.” 

  


“Queen Lyria—” Her advisor flicks his gaze to her in shock; he, Keith finds, isn’t nearly as hard to read. His own dark eyes say:  _ what are you doing? Surely you cannot be serious.  _

  


And there—right there. Keith takes careful note of the look Queen Lyria exchanges with the Acraiian man. He can’t parse apart any specific intention or emotion, but he gleans enough from it to know this conversation is far from over. 

  


The unease that’s settled into Keith’s chest like a beast resigned to a life of imprisonment rises to rear its head up once more in protest. Keith clenches his fists in his lap to stifle it. 

  


“I am open to hearing more on the subject of Voltron’s beliefs before coming to a final decision,” Queen Lyria continues. “After all, is that not the very reason why I invited you into my home? Regardless of personal differences of opinion—an alliance is about finding the middle ground between us. So,” she raises her wine glass, as if in a toast, and says, “Let us find that middle ground.” 

  


Keith takes a sip from his own glass, filled with water, in hopes that it will rinse away the bad taste in his mouth, or the sudden nausea crawling at his insides. Whatever middle ground there is to be found, it will be born on the sacrifice of Keith’s protests, unvoiced. 

  


He ignores every part of his mind that tells him something isn’t right, here, and drinks from his glass until it’s empty. The conversation moves on from the charged topic, but he can feel every single time the queen’s gaze passes over him, like an electric shock each time, for the rest of the evening. 

  
  


_____

  
  


The unpleasant chill of Acra’s atmosphere hits Keith’s skin the moment he steps out of the shower. It’s something he’s been unconsciously aware of since they arrived here, but now that he’s out of his paladin armor, it’s impossible to ignore the uncomfortable quality of the air. It’s too dry, crisp in a way that makes each inhale feel like there isn’t enough oxygen to fill his lungs. The coolness has the same quality of frigid air on a winter’s day; he feels like he’s breathing in particles of ice, prickling down his windpipe to stab needles into his lungs. 

  


The chill doesn’t subside, even when he’s changed into a pair of sweatpants and one of Lance’s hoodies, or when he steps out of the bathroom to find Lance starfished across the bed in their suite. He’s staring up at the small chandelier dangling from where the four bedposts peak above the direct center of the mattress, but draws his gaze away from it to Keith the moment he hears the door open. 

  


His eyes are unreadable; Keith doesn’t know if it’s because of the distance between the bathroom door and the bed, or the non-physical distance. Before he can spiral too deep into that thought, though, Lance turns his head back to face the chandelier, doing finger guns at it as if he needs to further point out its existence. 

  


“Yeah, so, this?” he says, “There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep under this all week without thinking about it falling and impaling us in our sleep.” 

  


Keith eyes the sharp, glittering crystals, far too close to Lance’s face for comfort. “We could sleep on the floor.” 

  


Lance pushes himself up onto his elbows as he considers it, then nods, sliding off the bed. “Good idea,” he says. He reaches immediately for the mountain of pillows at the head of the bed, tossing them one by one to the floor on the side nearest to Keith.

  


Keith comes over to help wordlessly. There’s a certain stiffness in their silence, he thinks, that’s impossible to ignore, even if that’s what he’s choosing to do. It’s a stiffness that wasn’t there before: the unspoken acknowledgment that there are things between them that Keith never wanted to come to light; things that maybe still need to, but he isn’t willing to tell, and Lance isn’t willing to yield, so they are, essentially, at an impasse. 

  


Evidently—Lance doesn’t see it that way. Because after only a few moments of tugging and untucking sheets, his hands go still and flat on the mattress as he sighs. He says, “I already know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think we should probably continue yesterday’s conversation.” 

  


Keith’s hands freeze on the sheets mid-tug; he’s able to regain control of them quickly, but definitely not before Lance can notice it. He yanks again, and the fitted sheet completely peels away to reveal what he guesses is some kind of mattress topper. It’s thick and padded, and when he presses his hand to it, it sinks deep into the material to leave a momentary indent. 

  


He carefully keeps his eyes on it, and not Lance, saying in as neutral a voice he can manage, “You’re right—that is an unpopular opinion.” 

  


He still isn’t looking, but he can  _ hear _ the furrow between Lance’s eyebrows when he says, “Keith.” 

  


Guilt pricks alongside the ice shards in his lungs when Keith inhales, exhales. But he sets his jaw, ignoring the guilt as he starts to pull the mattress topper off the bed. He thinks, distantly, that they’ll need all the padding they can get on the glass floor. “There’s nothing to  _ continue,  _ Lance. That conversation is over. We’re not talking about it again.” 

  


Lance shoves from his side, and the mattress topper goes sliding across the mattress beneath; Keith barely has to drag it a few more inches before it  _ thuds  _ to the floor. Even the mild exertion leaves him feeling the slightest bit dizzy and lightheaded; it’s alongside these observations that he realizes he still has a bit of leftover nausea left from dinner. 

  


He doesn’t want Lance to see any of it, though; doesn’t want to give him another reason to see Keith as  _ weak, _ so he turns away from him and starts gathering up the bedding they had discarded on the floor to refashion into a sort of blanket nest. 

  


“You know it’s not over,” Lance is saying, the slightest note of frustration creeping into his voice. It makes Keith feel even more uneasy over  _ this _ stilted conversation than he already did. “Keith, come on. Last night was—was  _ hell,  _ but we can’t just . . . leave things like that. I  _ know  _ you don’t want to talk about this, but by now you  _ have  _ to know that we  _ have to. _ It’s a conversation we’ve needed to have for a long time.” 

  


“No. It’s  _ not.”  _ Keith shakes his head, which results in his equilibrium shifting just a bit too far off-kilter for a moment; he tips as if he’s about to lose his balance, and only barely catches himself before his footing can slip. 

  


Lance’s focus immediately shifts, blue eyes darkening with sudden concern as he hones in on the involuntary action. “What’s wrong?” 

  


_ “Nothing  _ is wrong,” Keith starts, but before he can even fully get the words out Lance has rounded the now-bare bed to him, reaching out as if he intends to help him sit down. Sure enough, that’s the first thing he tries to get Keith to do, hand going to his elbow—and this is when something in Keith snaps, and he’s had  _ enough.  _

  


He pulls away from Lance, his dizziness forgotten in the wake of his sudden frustration.  _ “This  _ is what’s wrong,” he says. Lance goes suddenly, completely motionless. 

  


“What? What . . . what’s  _ this?”  _

  


“You,” Keith says, frustration building now that he’s  _ thinking  _ about it—everything that’s been there under the surface for  _ weeks,  _ but he’s been too in his head to think much of it beyond the crushing guilt, let alone address it.  _ “All  _ of you.  _ Treating  _ me like this, like I’m so sick I can’t do  _ anything  _ for myself. Earlier, in there with Queen Lyria—what the fuck  _ was  _ that, Lance?” 

  


He finally looks up at him, daring to truly meet his boyfriend’s eyes. Lance’s are wide, as if he’s taken aback. As if this is the last thing he would expect Keith to have a problem with, even though of  _ course,  _ it should be  _ obvious.  _

  


“You were all acting as if me telling her I’m Galra was something I shouldn’t have done, even though we’re _always_ upfront with potentials allies about it—even planets as powerful as this one. Unless none of that matters now, since I’m not even really a paladin anymore.” 

  


Lance’s brows crease. “Of course it still  _ matters.”  _

  


“Then why weren’t you  _ acting  _ like it?” Keith snaps, “There is  _ no  _ reason you all should have reacted the way you did, and I know you only did because you think I can’t handle someone being a racist asshole right now. But I  _ can— _ I’ve handled it dozens of times before, and I’m not going to fall to pieces when it happens now. I  _ definitely  _ don’t want any of you lying or keeping information from our allies because of me. It’s not helpful to anybody, and I can’t  _ stand  _ that shit.” 

  


“I . . . it’s not that we were going to  _ lie,”  _ Lance says, hesitating. “But—Keith, you’re  _ sick,  _ and we’re worried, and trying to protect you—” 

  


“But that’s not helping _anything,”_ Keith cries. He throws up a hand to tug frustratedly through his hair. “Trying to _protect me_ clearly isn’t doing _shit,_ Lance. I’m no more or less _sick_ than I’ve _always been—_ I’ve just gotten worse at _hiding_ it. That’s the _only_ difference, but because of it, lately I barely even feel like a person around any of you. _Especially_ you.” 

  


“Me?” Lance falters, taking a step back as if he’s just been slapped. “Why  _ me?”  _

  


Keith can’t stand to see the look on his face, so he looks away, blinking his prickling eyes at the emerald-stained glass wall. “You don’t kiss me like you used to,” he says, voice rough and throat thick with the press of ignored tears. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Even when I didn’t know that—that you _knew_ something, I still knew you were acting _different._ You’ve been treating me like I’m made of fucking glass, and you never would’ve treated me like that before. But sometimes, lately, you make me feel like maybe I really _am_ made of glass, and like I’m always on the verge of falling apart, but maybe I _wouldn’t_ feel like that all the time if you would treat me like I’m _not_ permanently fucked up—even if we both know I am.” 

  


“I—I don’t  _ think that,  _ Keith.” He hears the thickness in his own voice mirrored in Lance’s; when he brings himself to meet Lance’s eyes again, he finds them glossed over, painfully bright. “And I’m sorry I’ve been making you feel like that. I don’t  _ want  _ you to feel like that. But I didn’t know what I was supposed to  _ do, _ and I was  _ scared,  _ because I don’t ever want to fuck up with you.” 

  


“You’re not going to fuck up with me,” Keith says. But Lance shakes his head, mouth pressed into a flat line. 

  


“I already  _ have.  _ I know I’ve crossed some of your boundaries. Don’t try to tell me I haven’t,” he says this last part when Keith opens his mouth to protest. He closes it, crosses his arms over his chest as he flicks his gaze somewhere over Lance’s shoulder. 

  


“That’s never your fault,” he whispers. 

  


“It’s not yours, either,” Lance replies, just as quiet. “But there’s still things we should’ve talked about before now. Things we  _ have _ to talk about now. Important things, like—where the boundaries are, and safe words. Because you can’t keep trying to push yourself like you have, and I . . . I can’t always read your mind.” 

  


“I know that,” Keith says, even though he isn’t sure if he really does. He’s never had to talk about those things before. He isn’t sure he’d even know where to begin, if he did have to. 

  


“Do you?” Lance softly asks. Keith doesn’t look at him, and he doesn’t answer the question. He turns back to the mess of loose sheets and blankets on the floor and says, “We should finish this. We’re both tired.” 

  


With a sigh, but no further argument for the moment, Lance comes over to help. It doesn’t take them long to arrange everything, and Keith crawls beneath the thick duvet to lay on his back as soon as it’s set in place. Lance turns off the lights and settles down after him, arm immediately curling around Keith’s waist to pull him closer. He sighs at the contact, finally feeling warmth surround him to break the chill that’s clung to him all day, and closes his eyes. 

  


“Wait.” He opens his eyes again. He watches Lance as he shifts onto an elbow, propping himself over Keith to look down at him. It’s too dark to be able to make out his facial expression, but Keith thinks he might be frowning, a little. “You . . . you said I don’t kiss you like I used to,” he says. 

  


Keith sighs, flicking his gaze to the ceiling. “Lance, I don’t want to talk about this anymore tonight.” 

  


“No—I know. That’s not what I was trying to get to.” 

  


“Oh.” Keith glances back to him. He thinks he can just make out the darkest flash of his eyes. “Then what?” 

  


Lance hesitates for a moment. Keith wishes the lights were still on so he could read more of him, could maybe figure out what’s going on in his mind. And then he asks, so quiet Keith almost misses it—“Do you want me to?” 

  


Keith blinks up at him. Now he’s the one who hesitates; not because he doesn’t know what he wants, but because he  _ does.  _ He’s suddenly not nearly as tired as he was only moments ago. He’s fixed on the shadow of Lance’s mouth, barely even discernible from the rest of his face in the dark. 

  


He breathes, and he carefully asks, “Now?” 

  


Lance hesitates again. “Yeah.” 

  


“Yeah.” Keith nods, fingers itching to pull Lance close, to erase the distance himself. But part of him wants Lance to do it more. “Yes.” 

  


“Okay.” Lance nods, then falls still for a moment, steadily inhaling. Exhaling, he leans down into Keith’s space, settling a hand onto the side of his jaw as he hovers, close enough that his breath brushes across Keith’s mouth. Keith breathes in the mint scent of his toothpaste combined with cucumber-vanilla lip balm, finally something he can breathe in without feeling as if he’s inviting a layer of frost into his lungs. He reaches out, fingers  _ finally  _ catching in the front of Lance’s T-shirt, and closes his eyes. 

  


When Lance kisses him, it feels like even the most resistant ice frozen deep within Keith’s bones melts instantly. It’s replaced with a quiet thrum of energy, with the summer sunshine Lance has carried around with him for his entire life. Zinging through his veins, setting his skin where he touches him alight, but never unpleasantly. 

  


Lance is careful, but not like he was before; he doesn’t touch Keith as if he’s something breakable, doesn’t kiss him so lightly that it’s barely a kiss at all. Keith tugs him closer by his shirt and he complies readily, deepening the kiss as his hand slips down to Keith’s shoulder to keep himself steady. Keith sighs into it, revels in the freely given  _ warmth,  _ relieved at how for the first time all day, he feels kind of alright. He can  _ breathe,  _ even as Lance makes him feel a little bit breathless, like he’s taking all the air out of his lungs and replacing it with a kind of oxygen that only he can give. 

  


Even when fatigue ebbs itself back into their movements—pulses beginning to slow from their rocketing pace, lips dragging against one another and stalling—it’s still easier to breathe here in Lance’s space that it has been anywhere else since they landed on this planet. 

  


For a moment, Keith wonders if maybe he should bring up the strange quality of Acra’s air to Lance. He wonders if Lance has been feeling it, too, and if it’s something they should be concerned about, or at the very least, if they should mention it to Coran or Allura. 

  


But then Lance pulls away. His breath is light against Keith’s lips, as warm as a gusting wind when he tells him, “I . . . I love you, Keith. You know that, right?” 

  


“Yes,” Keith whispers back. His other questions evaporate, fading into a place of insignificance as he wonders instead:  _ how could I not, when you kiss me like that? How could I not, when after all the hell I give you, you still  _ want  _ to kiss me like that?  _ He doesn’t ask those questions, either. Instead, he leans in to kiss him once more—short, soft, barely a press of lips at all—and says, “I love you, too.” 

  


Sometimes, the words alone don’t feel like enough. Sometimes Keith wonders if they really convey to Lance all that he feels for him. Sometimes he worries that they don’t, but he hopes they do; there are a lot of things he would be fine with Lance never knowing about him, but how much he loves him isn’t one of them. If Lance can’t  _ feel  _ it, in every word and every look and every touch shared between them, then Keith is doing something wrong. 

  


He doesn’t want to relax his grip on Lance’s shirt, but he does, when both of them become tired enough that they could almost fall asleep just like this. Lance, at least, doesn’t go far; when he settles back onto his pillow, Keith rolls onto his side and curls up against his shoulder, inhaling the comforting scent of his mingled shampoo-lotion-laundry detergent scent. Lance drapes an arm over his side, presses another kiss to the top of his head, and falls silent against him, save for the soothing sound of his breathing as it evens out into sleep. 

  


Keith listens to it for a long time: the steady push and pull, the lull of an ocean tide sweeping in and out, over and over. He closes his eyes and imagines, for a moment, himself and Lance, drawn in by an ocean somewhere beneath a luminescent full moon. He thinks that he would be willing to follow Lance down into that ocean forever, swept beneath the waves into inky darkness, swimming and swimming until they’re past the point of no return and the thought of the shore is only a distant memory: half-imagined, otherwise forgotten. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_ Isabella talks about death like it’s some grand adventure. Keith really wishes she wouldn’t. Death scares him, and the way she fantasizes about it scares him even more so. But it’s her favorite topic; she’s talking about it even now, when they’re on a  _ real  _ adventure, laying in the bed of a stolen pickup truck in the desert, staring up at the constellations his father taught him before he could even write his own name.  _

  


_ “Just think about it, Keith,” she says, “I bet there’s  _ nothing  _ after death. It’s probably just beautiful, empty darkness. There’s no one to mess with us, and nothing to hurt us, and we don’t have to be afraid because the worst stuff has already happened and it’s  _ over. _ You won’t have to miss anyone, and I won’t have to live with the fact that no one misses me. We’ll just be—dust, if we’re even that.”  _

  


_ Keith turns his head to look at her. She has her jacket balled up like a pillow beneath her head, even though it’s gotten a lot colder since the sun went down. There’s a serenity in her face that he’s never seen before as she stares up into the starry sky, even though she’s talked like this lots of times before. It’s the first time she’s ever looked so at peace, and that sends a chill down Keith’s spine that has nothing to do with the cool desert night, because she—she’s  _ serious,  _ isn’t she? She means it.  _

  


_ “Don’t you believe in hell?” he wonders. Truth is, he doesn’t know if he believes in it, himself. He’s met a lot of people who believe a lot of different things, with all the foster homes he’s been in. Some families believe in things like heaven and hell, and some don’t, but none have ever really tried to push any of those beliefs onto him because he’s never really stayed long enough for the effort to matter. He’s never even wondered what he believes in, before.  _

  


_Isabella snorts._ “This _is_ _hell,” she says. “I mean, come on. Can you imagine anything worse than here?”_

  


_ Keith turns his gaze back to the stars. He says nothing for a while, just letting the silence of the desert night fall over them, and when it’s settled their hearts into steady tranquility he softly says, “It’s not so bad, right here.” He would like to stay here forever. He would like for his dad to be here with him, like he used to be. In fact, he’s pretty sure this is the exact same spot his dad used to drive them to, right across the New Mexico state line. His dad used to tell him that his mom was watching over him from the stars. (He still doesn’t know if that means she’s dead or not, but either way, he doesn’t care. She’s not here. And she certainly hasn’t been looking out for him.) _

  


_ Isabella says nothing, and Keith can’t stand the silence, or not knowing the answer to the burning, pressing question that’s always in the back of his mind, these days. “Do you think—do you think we’re gonna make it to eighteen?” he asks.  _

  


_ They’ve talked about it before, in hypotheticals: what they’ll do when they’re adults and not wards of the state, when they can make their own decisions and do what they want and don’t have to worry about what person is going to hurt them next. Isabella doesn’t have any dreams, or so she says. But Keith wants to become a pilot. He wants to learn how to fly, and then fly as far away from his life as he can. Maybe he could become an astronaut and leave Earth behind entirely. His dad  _ did  _ always tell him to shoot for the stars.  _

  


_ “I don’t know, Keith,” she says—not harsh, just honest. “Why should we even try? I mean, what good is adulthood really going to do for us?”  _

  


_ “There’s my house. We could live there together. Get boring jobs and volunteer at like, animal shelters on weekends and shit. We don’t have to be ruined forever . . . do we?”  _

  


_ Truthfully, that’s the thing Keith thinks he’s most afraid of, when he thinks of the future. That the things that happened when he was a kid will follow him, like some unshakeable curse. He feels cursed, sometimes, even though he doesn’t know if those are real, either.  _

  


_ Isabella says they’re cursed. She says there’s actual scientific evidence to support it.  _ “Revictimization,”  _ she’s spat out the word on occasion, when she’s angry enough to let all her pent-up thoughts spill over,  _ “basically: once you’re fucked, you’re fucked.”  _ Keith hates that word. He hates that she’s probably right.  _

  


_ He hopes she’s not, though. He hopes they can leave that stuff behind for good.  _

  


_ “Maybe not. I mean, maybe there’s hope for you. But it’s a really long time from now, Keith. I can promise to try, but . . . I can’t promise I’ll still be around when you turn eighteen. I don’t know if I can make it.”  _

  


_ Keith knows the promise to try is better than no promise at all, but there’s a childish part of him that wishes she would tell him she’ll still be here, even if it’s a lie. But Isabella never lies to him. She says lies make things hurt worse, even when you know they’re lies from the very beginning.  _

  


_ And he’s not a child. Neither of them are. They haven’t been children in a really long time. So he accepts the truth for what it is. “Okay,” he says, and takes a deep breath. “Then, can you promise me something else?”  _

  


_ “What is it?”  _

  


_ He sits up, feeling gritty sand that’s been kicked up into the truck bed scrape beneath his palms. He’s missed the feeling so much, he thinks; it’s a little strange, the things he hadn’t realized were important until he’d lost them. The feeling of sun-scorched sand burning his feet. The way the horizon just seems to go on and on forever, no end in sight. Isabella’s eyes are dark, not catching any of the starlight overhead, and Keith thinks that if there’s ever a day where they don’t get to be together, he’s going to miss her, too.  _

  


_ She’s all he has in the universe. The idea of losing her fills him with the same unbearable, twisting pain that losing his dad had.  _

  


_“If—if it gets too hard,” he begins, faltering on the possibility, on the thought of a world without_ _her, “if you can’t do it anymore . . . promise you’ll say goodbye. Promise me you won’t leave without saying goodbye, Isabella.”_

  


_ Isabella is quiet for a really long time. And then she says, “Yeah, I can do that. I promise.”  _

  


_ Keith doesn’t sigh in relief, but only barely. “Thank you.” _

  


_ They spend a long time just staring at the sky. They don’t sleep much these days, if they ever did. Sometimes, Keith can’t remember.  _

  


_ “Hey, Isabella?” Keith’s throat is thick with the words. He’s never said them to her before, but he thinks if he doesn’t now, he’ll never get to, and she’ll never know, and his heart can’t physically stand that thought. “I love you.”  _

  


_ Isabella turns her head to look at him. He can’t see her eyes in the darkness, but he thinks for a moment that she probably doesn’t believe him. Probably, no one’s ever even said they loved her before. His heart twists again, because it always hurts to think about that. About how  _ unfair  _ it is that Isabella’s life had to turn out like this. She deserves so much better than what she’s been given. She deserves more than the love of just one eleven-year-old boy, who’s too much of a burden to be worth much.  _

  


_ But then Isabella whispers, “I love you, too,” and the emotion in Keith’s throat prickles into a burn behind his eyes.  _

  


_ She always says she doesn’t believe love exists for people like them. Keith doesn’t know what it means, that she’s changing her mind now. He wonders if she’s even changed her mind at all, or if she’s lying to him.  _

  


_ Isabella never lies to him. But maybe she is, this time. Maybe she’s trying to protect his feelings. Or maybe she really does love him.  _

  


_ Either way—maybe it doesn’t matter. He’s never going to really know. The only person whose feelings he’s ever going to know for sure are his own. And he loves her. She’s his best friend, and he loves her, and maybe that’s the only thing that matters.  _

  


_ He hopes that it’s enough, for both of them. Maybe he isn’t worth much, but he hopes that his love is worth enough to get them both through the next few years. And he really hopes that Isabella is wrong about the future.  _

  


_ Maybe there’s something that Keith is more afraid of than the past following them. Maybe the thing he’s most afraid of—the thing he won’t ever dare to say out loud—is living in a world where no one loves him—or a world where, at least, there’s no one to pretend with.  _

  
  


_____

  
  


The sensation that something is  _ wrong  _ is what stirs Keith awake. 

  


At first, it’s difficult to pinpoint what it is: the sickness feels like it’s coming from all over, and only worsens when he sits up, dizziness rising up to swell over him as he flattens his palms on top of the blankets, shivering as he opens his eyes onto darkness. Not total darkness; faint lights from the city twinkle through the translucent glass wall to his left. It’s just enough light to be able to make out the shape of his hands, trembling slightly. 

  


Lance is saying his name. “Keith? Keith, what’s wrong?” He sets a hesitant hand on top of Keith’s, worriedly notes, “You’re shaking.” 

  


“Yeah, I—” Keith inhales sharply, shudders, and realizes what’s wrong as the wave of nausea in his stomach  _ lurches.  _ “I’m going to throw up,” he tells Lance, and shoves off the blankets to get up. He almost falls when he tries to stand, though, the dizziness swelling and spinning him so badly that he’s convinced for a moment that he’s going to be sick right onto the pristine glass floors of their palace suite. But Lance steadies him, and distantly Keith is aware of him asking questions as he helps him shuffle into the bathroom, flicking on the lights as they go and settling him onto the floor in front of the toilet. Keith is still shivering, kind of wishing he’d thought to bring a blanket with him as he sits there on his knees, waiting for the room to stop spinning. 

  


Lance brings up a hand to brush gently across his forehead after a moment, and the warmth from it is enough to make him almost pass out from relief. “You’re . . . burning up,” his boyfriend says, the worry in his voice starker than before. Keith has no idea what he’s talking about. 

  


“It’s—it’s  _ cold,  _ Lance,” he shudders again, “I feel like I—like I’m  _ freezing.  _ I c-can’t  _ breathe.”  _

  


He hears Lance’s worry darken into alarm as he tells him, “That sounds bad. I think . . . I think I need to get Coran. Do you think you’ll be okay here for a minute by yourself, sunshine?” 

  


Visceral  _ horror  _ rises in him at the thought of being alone here. It’s when he goes to shake his head that the sickness in his stomach finally rears up, and he lurches forward to expel what little is in his body into the basin. Lance curses softly behind him, reaches to pull Keith’s hair out of his face with one hand while the other settles comfortingly onto his back, murmuring reassuring nothings while Keith is wracked with awful,  _ painful  _ convulsions that even Lance’s warmth can’t numb. 

  


Distantly, he’s aware that it goes on for far longer than it should, considering how little he’d eaten that day, but it’s hard to grasp onto anything beyond how miserable he feels. He’s still so dizzy that he doesn’t think he’d be able to sit up without Lance to steady him, and his stomach is cramping something  _ horrible,  _ and even when it’s empty, the cramps still don’t cease. He coughs up bile until his throat is raw, shuddering into an involuntary, cut-off sob as he tries to catch his breath. His lungs feel tight, entirely unreceptive to the oxygen of this planet. 

  


“Shh, I’m here, I’ve got you,” Lance is murmuring when he can finally focus on his voice again. He’s running his hand along Keith’s spine, and he can feel the heat from it even through the thick fabric of his sweatshirt. It’s warmer than his sweatshirt, even, and Keith is so out of his mind that he almost asks Lance to put his hand directly on his skin. He doesn’t, though; he slumps back into his boyfriend’s chest, limbs too heavy to be able to take the wet cloth Lance tries to give him to wipe his mouth, and too drained to be able to protest when after a moment, he does it for him. 

  


For what could be seconds or hours, Keith continues to shiver against Lance, keeping his eyes closed as he works to bring his breathing down from agonizing to only a little unbearable. And then Lance says, again, “I think I need to get Coran now, Keith. Do you feel like you need to throw up again?” 

  


“No,” Keith mutters. There’s nothing left in him to throw up. But his eyes prickle as he thinks about Lance leaving, again. “Don’t go.” 

  


Lance kisses the top of his head, even though it’s probably damp with sweat and disgusting. “I will be  _ right  _ back,” he promises. It doesn’t make Keith feel better, and it doesn’t stop his eyes from burning, but he doesn’t have the energy to protest when Lance leaves him in the bathroom to go get Coran. Instead, he curls up on the floor, shivering when the side of his face makes contact with the frigid glass, the only warmth he can find coming from the unconscious tears he can’t stop. He shuts his eyes and prays for sleep to reclaim him, and it does—for a moment. 

  


Lance is back when he opens his eyes again, nudging him gently and telling him, “Baby, you can’t sleep yet. Come on, can you sit up a minute?” Keith can’t—not on his own, but Lance helps him, and it’s only as he’s slumping forward onto his shoulder that he realizes Coran is here now, asking questions that at first, he doesn’t register are directed at him. 

  


“I don’t know,” Lance is responding to something Keith didn’t register, “He didn’t tell me if he was. Keith? Keith,” he nudges him again, “Did you start feeling sick before we went to bed?” 

  


“Um . . .” It’s difficult for him to think that far back, but he tries. “I . . . think so? I think—dinner.” That sounds right. He closes his eyes. “I’m cold.” 

  


“I know, sweetheart. We’re going to make it better, okay?” 

  


After that, everything blurs into each other. He thinks Lance coaxes a couple of pills and some water into him. He hears Coran say, muffled as if he’s speaking underwater, “—scanners say food poisoning. I’ll have to check on the others to see—” 

  


He blinks his eyes closed in the bathroom and when he opens them again, they’re back on their makeshift bed on the floor. Lance is holding him, and he presses his face against his neck as he shivers, grasping at the back of his shirt and mumbling, “Touch me here, I’m so  _ cold,”  _ until finally, Lance hesitantly complies. He nearly cries at the relief he feels at the contact, Lance’s hand so warm against his bare spine that it almost burns, and  _ finally,  _ he feels okay enough—or at least, the misery is alleviated enough for him to fall back into sleep. 

  


His dreams are murky and restive, tinged with red and viewed through a wall of blurred, dark water. He thinks someone is crying, and someone else is calling his name, but he doesn’t know where he is, or what he’s hearing, or what he’s looking at. And everything is spinning, or maybe it’s just him, but when he wakes up again his heart is pounding and something is  _ wrong,  _ and he doesn’t know  _ what.  _

  


“Something is wrong,” he says to Lance, hoping that maybe he’ll know something Keith doesn’t, somehow. Lance’s eyes are worried blue but none of the understanding he’s looking for, as he reaches out to brush Keith’s bangs off his forehead to check his temperature, replaces his hand with his lips a moment later. 

  


“It’s going to be okay,” Lance tells him, “Try to get some more sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up again.” 

  


Keith wants to tell him that no, he doesn’t  _ get it;  _ wants to repeat that something is wrong and he  _ can’t  _ sleep, because how could he sleep in a place that feels as if it was designed specifically to torture him? But that’s an insane, fever-wrought line of paranoia—even now, Keith knows how ridiculous that would sound. 

  


And even if he could somehow explain to Lance what he feels, he doesn’t get to. He clings to him, closes his eyes, and falls right back into blurred, chaotic fragments of broken dreams. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith’s lashes brush against fabric when he blinks his eyes open again. He inhales sharply, taking in Altean fabric softener and sweet-scented lotion, and his shoulders relax before he can even realize he’d tensed in the first place. 

  


His mind feels clearer than it had last time he was awake. He’s groggy but not incohesive, and he’s warm, as if he’s laying right by a fire. It takes him a moment to realize that the fire is actually Lance, and the reason why he feels so much warmer than before is because Lance is carefully skimming his palm along the line of his spine under his sweatshirt. 

  


As soon as Lance realizes he’s awake, the movement stills. “Sorry,” he hesitantly says, pulling away from Keith just enough to be able to read his face. “Just—earlier, you wouldn’t stop shivering. This seemed to be the only thing that would calm you down. But I can stop if you want.” 

  


“No,” Keith murmurs. He shakes his head as best he can while laying down, reaches out to snag the front of Lance’s shirt and pull him close again. He rests his forehead back against Lance’s chest and says, “Don’t stop. Stay here.” 

  


“Okay.” Lance brings his other hand up to rest at the back of Keith’s head, fingers tangling in his hair as he combs through it. “Are you feeling better?” 

  


“Yeah,” Keith exhales slowly. He’s trying to recall the night’s events, but can’t call up much past passing out on the bathroom floor. “What was it, anyway?” 

  


“Food poisoning,” Lance replies. His hand stills in Keith’s hair, though the one on his back keeps up its slow drag as he says, “Or, that’s what Coran’s scanner said, anyway. I’m not so sure it was right, though.” 

  


_ Food poisoning.  _ Keith frowns. He thinks back to everything he’d eaten yesterday: nothing, except for two bites of salad at dinner. The same salad that was on everyone else’s plate. “Is . . . did anyone else get sick?” 

  


“No,” Lance says. Keith can hear a frown mirrored in his voice. “That’s what I think is so off. The rest of us are perfectly fine. Allura said she would ask Queen Lyria about it while they’re out. Guess we’ll see, when they get back.” 

  


Keith’s brows crease. “While they’re out?” he repeats. 

  


“Yeah. They went to some kind of botanical garden or something. Left a few hours ago.” 

  


Something uneasy stirs in the pit of Keith’s stomach. It isn’t nausea, at least, but he isn’t sure it’s any more preferable. He pulls away to look at Lance. “What time is it?” he asks. 

  


“Afternoon.” And then, seeing the look on Keith’s face, he continues, “We all wanted to let you sleep; no  _ way  _ were we going to force you to wake up and go out when you’re sick. And no way was I going to leave you here by yourself.” 

  


Keith doesn’t have any good protests to that, and even if he did, he doesn’t feel like arguing. So he nods instead, presses his face into the fabric of Lance’s shirt, and breathes. 

  


His lungs don’t feel as tight as they did earlier. If he doesn’t focus on the subtle heaviness within his ribcage, he can almost pretend nothing is wrong. 

  


Almost. That uneasy feeling in his stomach squirms, as if to make sure Keith doesn’t forget about its presence _.  _ But there’s nothing he can do to alleviate it, and nothing that can explain it, so he does his best to ignore it. 

  


Right here, with Lance, everything is almost okay. The smooth-rough dichotomy of Lance’s hand is a familiar comfort against his skin; the steady rise and fall of his chest, the steady  _ ba-bump, ba-bump  _ of his heart within it lulls Keith into a sense of security, even as there’s a part of his mind that’s deeply bothered by the thought of the rest of their teammates, out somewhere in this city without them. 

  


He breathes in again; breathes out. “Sorry you had to . . . see all that, last night. I’m sure I looked as horrible as I felt.” 

  


Lance twists his fingers in Keith’s hair, nails scraping gently at his scalp. “In sickness and in health, right?” he says, voice light, though there’s something deeper there that he can’t quite figure out. 

  


He closes his eyes. “We’re not married though, Lance.” 

  


Lance says nothing to that. He just pulls Keith a micrometer closer, across a distance he hadn’t even realized was there, to press a soft, lingering kiss to the crown of his head. Keith doesn’t know what it means. He doesn’t ask. 

  


He thinks, though. He’s thinking about marriage, suddenly, and wondering what Lance thinks of it. Lance seems like the type of person who would think marriage is something important. Love, commitment—those things are things he values above maybe anything else in the universe. Lance has probably always dreamed of getting married someday. 

  


Probably not to Keith, though. Keith thinks about that, too: thinks about himself, and how he’s never really given a second thought to marriage, and how if he did, it was only to think that there would definitely, never be someone who wanted to marry him. And how that was probably a good thing, because he would certainly never want to marry them if they did. 

  


It’s not like it even really means anything, he thinks. It’s all just—symbolism: a piece of paper, a ceremony, a ring. Things that only matter if you project some kind of significance onto them. He doesn’t have to marry Lance to prove that he wants to be with him for the rest of his life, to promise him forever. And Lance already has him, anyway, for however long he wants him. He’s pretty sure Lance knows that. 

  


But he wonders what he would do, on the off chance that Lance  _ did  _ want to marry him someday. And he knows, without having to really think about it, what he would do. It’s hardly even a question that needs asking. 

  


It’s just daydreaming, though. Getting way too far ahead of himself. Maybe it’s hardly worth wondering about in the first place. Maybe it doesn’t really mean anything, so he shouldn’t even ask himself. 

  


There’s a soft series of raps on the door, dragging him out of his thoughts; the doors opens, and someone quietly asks, “Is he awake yet?” 

  


It’s Allura.  _ They’re back.  _ The uneasy feeling settles down a little, as Keith pulls away from Lance to look over at her. She’s standing in the doorway, jaw tight with unmistakeable concern until she sees him moving and alert. She relaxes, just slightly. “Oh, good,” she says, and sweeps into the room to settle on the floor by Keith. 

  


“How are you feeling?” 

  


“Better. Normal, really.” He doesn’t say  _ fine,  _ because he’s never really fine anymore, and everyone knows it, so Allura would be less likely to believe that he’s not on the verge of dying if he said he was fine. 

  


“Good. I’m glad.” Allura’s mouth is still tense, though. “I asked Queen Lyria about what could have caused you to be so sick. She’s claiming some expired vegetables must have gotten into the salad somehow. She sends her apologies.” 

  


Keith pushes himself up by his hands. Lance sits up after him, his palm falling away from Keith’s skin as he wraps his arm around his back. Keith laments the loss. The world feels like a frozen wasteland without him. 

  


Lance’s eyes are carefully guarded as he looks at Allura, calculating. “Are we really going to believe that?” he says after a moment. 

  


Allura blinks back at him. “Are you suggesting that we shouldn’t?” 

  


Emotion flashes in Lance’s blue eyes: irritation. It takes Keith by surprise. “Oh, come  _ on,  _ Allura,” he says, “Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious, how  _ Keith  _ was the only one to get this so-called food poisoning? Keith, the only one of us who’s partially Galra?” 

  


Allura’s eyes are unreadable. “She didn’t know he was Galra until the meal was halfway over. How could she have premeditated poisoning him?” 

  


“You tell me,” Lance challenges. Keith clears his throat. 

  


“Can you not talk about me like I’m not here?” he says. His mind, suddenly, is circling around what Lance is suggesting. It sounds paranoid—it sounds like something  _ Keith  _ would have thought, something he would turn over obsessively that would then turn out not to be even the slightest bit true—but it unsettles him nonetheless. 

  


_ Could _ Queen Lyria have premeditated something? It seems unlikely, but what if she was faking about being surprised at the revelation of Keith’s heritage during dinner last night? What if she only invited them here in a plot to rid Voltron of a half-Galra paladin? 

  


Keith disposes of that last question immediately. He doesn’t think nearly that highly enough of himself to believe that. Still, he thinks wryly, even if that  _ was  _ true, someone should have told her that he’s hardly even a paladin anymore. Not worth bothering with, honestly. 

  


Allura flicks her bicolored eyes to Keith. “Sorry,” she apologizess. “Do you think the same thing as Lance, then? Do you think your food was laced with something?” 

  


Keith chews at his lip for a moment, brings up his knees to wrap his arms around them. “I . . . don’t know,” he says hesitantly. “I don’t—no. Honestly, I think it was probably just a freak thing,” he lies. He doesn’t want to make accusations that will turn out not to be true, later. He doesn’t want to seem like he’s overreacting. “If she says it was an accident, then maybe we should give her the benefit of the doubt.” 

  


Lance narrows his eyes, clearly disagreeing. But he doesn’t try to argue. Allura nods, the matter clearly settled in her mind. 

  


“Alright, then,” she says, “So then, do you feel you are well enough to attend dinner tonight? There’s a party being thrown in Voltron’s honor, and the queen said she would love for you to be present, if you are up for it.” 

  


Lance’s arm goes tense around Keith’s back. “Absolutely not,” he says, “Allura, Keith’s  _ sick.”  _

  


Keith hesitates, insides prickling a little. Part of him wants to agree with Lance, wants to stay here in this room until the week is over and they can leave. He doesn’t want to be around Queen Lyria again. He definitely doesn’t feel like partying. 

  


But the thought of separating from the group again is even more unappealing. And there’s still the alliance to think about. If they want Acra to become part of the coalition, they  _ have  _ to put forward their best appearance. Possibly Keith moreso than the others, now that he’s singled himself out as the most  _ unreliable.  _

  


“I can go,” he says. To Lance, he directs, “And I can speak for myself, you know.” 

  


Lance frowns, looking like he can’t decide if he’s guilty or unhappy. “Sorry. I know,” he says, “But just—you don’t  _ have  _ to go, Keith. And I don’t think you should. You might feel better, but you still need to rest. Parties are the  _ opposite _ of resting.” 

  


“I’ve been resting all day,” Keith says. “And anyway, if I stay here, that means  _ you’re  _ going to want to stay here, and two paladins missing at a party thrown in our honor looks kind of bad, don’t you think?” 

  


Lance opens his mouth like he wants to argue, but knows Keith is right. He closes it, but he doesn’t look happy about it. 

  


To appease him, Keith says, even though he doesn’t really know if he’s telling the truth or not, “If I start feeling bad, we can leave. Alright?” 

  


Lance considers it, eyes still narrowed like he isn’t completely sure of Keith’s honesty, either. But in the end, he acquiesces. “Fine. Okay. We’ll go, then.” 

  


“Excellent.” Allura nods, the matter closed. “The party begins in one klu-rosh—which we had Pidge convert into Altean units to mean approximately a varga. I’m going to go get ready.” She stands to her feet and strides out of the room as quickly as she’d entered. When she’s gone, Keith runs a hand through his hair and becomes incredibly aware of how greasy his hair had gotten during the night. His skin is crawling from all of the dried sweat. “I’m going to shower,” he decides. He plucks up his Altean formalwear from his bag on the way, for a moment lingering on his Marmoran blade, just visible near the bottom of the bag. Then he turns and goes into the bathroom. 

  


The shower is warm, its steady stream erasing the grime from his body with ease. His limbs are still heavy with the last vestiges of sickness, but the water helps; what remains when he steps back out, he decides not to mention. Especially not to Lance. 

  


Lance is waiting for him when he gets out, tense as he watches Keith towel dry his hair. “Can you do something for me?” he says. 

  


Keith pauses, eyes flicking over him warily. “What?” 

  


There’s a nutrition bar in Lance’s hand. It’s the kind they keep stocked up in their lions in case of emergencies. Keith doesn’t know why Lance has one of them with him. He wonders if he just keeps them in his bag for when they’re planetside to snack on. “I know it sounds weird,” Lance slowly begins, “and super paranoid. But I want you to eat this, instead of whatever they’re serving at dinner tonight. Something . . . something seems  _ off  _ to me, Keith, about this whole situation. You were— _ really  _ sick last night, way worse than regular food poisoning, and—until we know we can trust these people, it would really ease my mind if you would just . . .  _ not  _ eat the food here. Please.” 

  


Keith eyes him carefully for a moment. “Do you think the queen was trying to poison me?” he asks. 

  


“I don’t know,” Lance confesses. “But I don’t want to take any chances. I was terrified last night. You stopped breathing in your sleep, once.” 

  


Something cold drips into Keith’s veins. “I . . . I didn’t know that.” 

  


“I didn’t want to scare you by making a huge deal out of it,” Lance says. “It was only for a few seconds. And maybe I’m just—just overreacting. But please, just this once, go along with me.” 

  


He holds out the nutrition bar. Keith takes it without protest. “I’d go anywhere with you,” he says. 

  


Lance’s smile is fleeting, but there. He presses a quick kiss to Keith’s forehead, then steps past him to his suitcase to grab his own clothes and a collapsible water bottle he’d found at a swap-moon. He fills the bottle with water from the bathroom sink, pops back into the bedroom to give it to Keith, then goes to shower. 

  


Keith chews at the nutrition bar slowly, his stomach not quite happy at the presence of food, but he eats all of it anyway. He’s taking small sips from Lance’s water bottle when he reemerges, bringing a cloud of mingled scents with him. He eyes the crumpled up wrapper by Keith’s knee where he sits on the floor and asks, “You still feeling okay?” 

  


“Yeah.” Keith takes another swig of water, then stands. “You ready to go?” 

  


Lance nods. As they’re leaving, he slips his hand into Keith’s, squeezing tightly. 

  


The others are already waiting in the common area outside their rooms. Pidge stands from one of the lavish sofas when she sees them, relief filling her amber eyes as she ambles over to latch onto Keith in a lung-crushing hug. “Thank God you’re okay,” she breathes, “Coran said it was really bad.” 

  


“Of course I’m okay. Coran was overexaggerating.” He carefully settles a hand onto the top of Pidge’s head. Over it, he shoots Coran a dirty look. The orange-haired man smiles apologetically. There’s worry in his eyes, matching Lance’s, but he doesn’t protest at Keith being up and about. When the servants come to collect them, they go together. 

  


Unlike the previous night, when only Queen Lyria’s closest attendants had been present, the dining hall is packed with Acra’s political leaders. Every seat at the table, save for the ones reserved for them, is filled from end to end. When they enter the room, Queen Lyria stands, raising her glass and tapping her sharp, pointed nails against it to draw attention. 

  


Her nails shouldn’t be strong enough to make the loud, tolling noise that they do, reverberating off of the glass walls and high, arched ceiling. When Keith hones in on them, his heart recoils, slamming against his ribcage as if it’s trying to escape. At the sound, everyone in the room quiets down, turning their focus on her. 

  


“Our guests have arrived,” the queen announces, gaze landing first on Allura, then flickering over the rest of them. She stills on Keith, eyes piercing even from across the room, and her mouth curves in what might be a vague appropriation of a smile. “I am pleased to introduce the paladins of Voltron: our soon-to-be allies in the war against Zarkon.” 

  


A room filled with placid stares turns onto them as they take their seats. Keith’s skin squirms beneath his clothes at the feeling of being watched. He lowers his gaze to the glossy table and keeps it there, uncomfortable at how totally silent the room has gone. If he tried, he’s sure he could parse out every individual breath of all one-hundred-and-something people present. 

  


Dinner is served shortly after they sit down. Keith attentively classifies the contents of his plate: some type of fish, it appears, over rice, with a side of the same salad as the night before. Keith’s eyes catch on the silvery leaves, the purple slices of what tasted almost like cucumber when he tried them. 

  


Now, his stomach turns at the sight of them. He flicks his gaze down into his lap, watches as Lance’s hand comes to rest on his thigh, palm-up. When he glances at him out of the corner of his eye, he finds him pretending to be interested in his own meal as Allura, at the end of the table, turns the attention of the room to herself. 

  


“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she says, “My team and I are very appreciative of how welcoming you and your people have been to us. We have believed since the beginning of this war that what is truly going to defeat Zarkon is not our weapons, or even Voltron itself, but the kindness and peace we show one another. Qualities that I see much of, here on Acra.” 

  


Keith takes Lance’s hand, threading their fingers together. He keeps his gaze there, not curious enough to look up to see Queen Lyria’s face as she replies, “You are too kind, Princess Allura. But I admire your optimism. Though I am regretful to say, it was not through kindness  _ or  _ a peaceful approach that we were able to defeat the Galra that pervaded our planet. Quite the opposite, in fact.” 

  


“Peace is not always possible,” Allura agrees. “Though within our alliances, it is what we always strive for. There is no difference between people that I believe should be strong enough to divide us.” 

  


“That is very admirable, indeed.” There’s something in the queen’s voice that unsettles Keith, but he can’t quite place it. If he didn’t know any better, he would think she was amused. 

  


“But enough about us,” Allura says. When Keith glances up at her, he finds her smiling easily, her fingers held elegantly around her fork. “We have spent all day regaling you with tales of our adventures across the universe. We are interested in hearing more on your history.” 

  


Queen Lyria hums. Lilting, contemplative. “I am not sure our story is quite the tale for lighthearted dinner conversations,” she says. “But, if you truly want to hear it . . .” 

  


“We would. As long as you feel comfortable sharing, that is.” Allura’s easy smile remains in place. Keith, after a heavy moment’s debate, follows the others’ gazes to the opposite end of the table. Queen Lyria’s face is inscrutable, as smooth and blank as glass itself. 

  


“Very well, then,” she says after a long moment. “If that is what you wish.”

  


She stands, graceful and elegant, with the attention of the entire room on the single movement. Her eyes rove over the table, past members of the royal council whose titles and names Keith doesn’t know, until she lands on the people he  _ does _ know: Hunk first, on the opposite side of the table from him; to Coran and Shiro; Allura at the table’s head; Pidge, to his right. She stops on Keith, or maybe he only imagines she does, but he feels locked beneath her stare, frozen in the same way he had the previous night. 

  


When she speaks, Keith feels every word as if they’re bullets, aimed directly and unapologetically at him. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Maybe one of the most unfair things about tragedy is that it doesn’t require a lot of time to deal the maximum trauma to go with it. Acra typifies this in the way many planets once enslaved by the Galra do. 

  


Acra was not held captive for a long time—in terms of numbers. Fifty years, in comparison with the ten thousand that this war has gone on for, is barely a blemish on the intergalactic calendar. But fifty years is more than enough time to completely dismantle a kingdom; to subjugate an entire planet and subsequently take away every part of its people’s culture, values, and sense of both community and individuality. 

  


It’s the same story Voltron has heard dozens, hundreds of times, and it won’t be the last time. But it never gets any easier to hear the horror, the anguish that comes with the inhumane circumstances the Galra Empire forces people to live under. Tragedy, devastation, poverty, ceaseless and senseless slaughter—these are all things Acra was subjugated to. In this way, they are no different from any of the other planets they’ve seen. 

  


“They swept in and took everything immediately,” Queen Lyria tells them. Her voice, in spite of the horrifying meanings that underlie her words, remains calm and cool. Tranquil, almost. Keith thinks that it must just be how Acraiians speak, and he tries not to let it unnerve him—but there’s something about the lack of inflection, of any sort of emotion from her while talking about something so painful, that deeply unsettles him to hear. 

  


“Our military was strong, but not like it is now,” she says, “We were not prepared. Our leaders were captured and killed. My grandmother, Queen Vara, was assassinated within these walls. It was the first of countless horrific acts to happen here.” 

  


While she speaks, she moves about the room; pale green gaze drifting from face to face as her dress billows elegantly around her. Every few words, she comes back to Keith, lingering there as if waiting for some sort of reaction. Keith doesn’t give her one, even if her words do strike a chord of horrified empathy for her people within him. 

  


“Parents were stolen from their children. Children were robbed of all safety, all innocence. All was under the subjection of the Galra who called themselves  _ leaders.  _ If one were to breathe incorrectly, they were likely to be punished, and in some instances, they were killed. I witnessed some of these killings myself as a child, before Acra overcame our weakness and began to fight back. And regretfully, I admit, it was a long time before we did fight. There was something holding us back—something we were not able to realize, until we evolved above it. Tell me—can any of you guess what that something was?” 

  


She’s looking at Keith again. Mouth curving in that almost-smile, not quite belonging on the otherwise blank glassiness of her face. No one speaks up to answer her question, so after a moment, she moves on, her voice ringing once again with one clear word:  _ “Empathy.”  _

  


Scorn echoes in the word’s wake, the queen’s lip twisting now in mockery. “It was the magnitude with which we felt things. Once, we were like you, Princess Allura. We used to strive for peace, and despised war for its bloodshed. But valuing life and fearing for our own weakened us beneath the Galra, who felt nothing for us. So we became like them. We gained the ability to shut off our emotions entirely at will: to enter a higher state, a  _ better  _ state, where feeling is optional—superfluous. And we overcame our oppressors through our newfound apathy.” 

  


Queen Lyria nears their end of the table, now; settling a hand onto the back of Hunk’s seat so that he has to twist around to look at her. But her gaze isn’t on the yellow paladin—she’s staring directly, openly at Keith now, lip still curled with dark amusement. 

  


“It is truly remarkable,” she says, “what a lack of feeling allows you to do. There is nothing sweeter than the sound of your enemies crying out for mercy, helpless beneath your hands. There is nothing more  _ powerful.”  _

  


Keith’s heart comes to a sudden, skidding halt in his chest, as a sickness that has nothing to do with the untouched dinner on his plate comes to life in his core.

  


He knows a threat when he hears one. 

  


Allura says something, drawing the queen’s gaze mercifully away from him. Keith doesn’t register anything else that’s said at dinner; a high-pitched, single-noted ring takes up the space within his brain, drowning out all other sound. 

  


He can’t help but think that it almost sounds like someone screaming. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Queen Lyria’s ballroom is as extravagant as her dining hall, if not more so. The ceiling arches impossibly higher; the chandelier at its center is adorned with enough strings of jewels to make the one from the dining hall look downright modest. Beneath it, partygoers glide elegantly across the room, dancing to the lilting, wind-chime music that the musicians at the back of the room play, or chatting amongst themselves, amongst the higher royals such as Queen Lyria herself, amongst the Voltron paladins. 

  


Keith isn’t quite in the right headspace to adequately pull off the typical, idle chatter of diplomats, and in a rare instance, Lance doesn’t seem to be, either. He keeps close to Keith’s side throughout the night, uncharacteristically tense; his hand hovers at Keith’s elbow as if in silent reassurance to himself, that he can reach out whenever he wants and find tangible proof that he’s still here. 

  


It unsettles Keith, the fact that  _ Lance  _ is so apparently unsettled. It’s a lot harder to tell himself that everything he’s thinking and feeling about this place is all in his head when Lance is thinking and feeling the same things.  _ Something is wrong,  _ he thinks, and he wants and  _ doesn’t _ want to ask:  _ do you feel it, too? That thing in the air; the way Queen Lyria looks at me. It’s wrong; it’s wrong; it’s wrong.  _

  


But if he were to ask, and Lance were to affirm all of his paranoid suspicions, then that makes them real, not paranoid, and that means there’s really something to worry about. He tries to imagine telling Allura that he wants to leave before they’ve secured the alliance just because someone doesn’t  _ like _ him, just because he doesn’t like being here, and the thought of asking Lance anything disintegrates immediately. 

  


Right now, Allura is surrounded by an entire horde of Acraiians, sparkling with every ounce of expert peacemaker within her. Smiling, saying all the right things to make the ambassadors around her nod in agreement, to make approving eyes at one another. In other words, she’s working her ass off. So is everyone. He spots Coran dancing with Queen Lyria’s ambassador—the one Keith distantly remembers the queen calling Rulan. Hunk and Shiro are entertaining their own flocks of curious aliens. Even Pidge is on the far end of the room, the glass of champagne expertly held between her fingers going ignored as she talks to someone Keith thinks might be a scientist. 

  


The night goes on. Through the clear glass that make up two of the four walls of the ballroom, Keith can see that Acra’s two suns have completely disappeared, giving onto a pitch night sky. With the darkness comes the cold again, more forceful than the just-bearable chill of the day. Keith fights off the shiver, but one slips through the barrier and Lance is on the slight movement like a hawk, eyes narrowing with concern. “Are you feeling sick again? Do you need to lay down?” 

  


“No,” Keith says, “and no. But I do need to use the restroom.” He doesn’t, truthfully. He just wants to get out from under the eyes of diplomats and his fretful boyfriend for a moment; put some distance between himself and the music that floats through the room, once calm and rhythmic, but now grating. He can feel the beginnings of a bad headache in his temples. 

  


Lance’s concern doesn’t ease up. “Do you want me to go with you?” he asks. 

  


“Lance,” Keith says, “it’s the  _ bathroom.  _ I’m pretty sure I can manage on my own.” At the obvious unease on Lance’s face, he sighs, squeezes his hand, and leans in to kiss his cheek. “I’ll be right back.” 

  


Lance lets him go without another protest, though Keith can still feel him watching him until he’s made it to the doors at the end of the ballroom. The guards have to open them, as tall and heavy as they are. Keith exits out onto a wide, empty hall, and when the doors close behind him, they do so with a clattering  _ CLANG!  _ that causes his shoulders to automatically tense around his neck. 

  


The air is distinctly more icy out here, without any people to break it up with their warm breaths and moving bodies to disperse the chill. Keith makes his way down the hall, each step echoing dissonantly against the glass floor, the glass walls. There are niches carved out at intervals along either side; the statues placed on pedestals within them are also, predictably, variations of stained glass. Keith has yet to see anything other than the food and the bedding in his and Lance’s room that  _ isn’t  _ made of glass, here. Even the people have that doll-like, delicate quality: though he has the ever-creeping suspicion that in spite of their appearance, the Acraiians are more like the sharp shards of a vase already dropped and scattered onto a marble floor. If you were to step on them, they would cut you deeply and unforgivably, leave you trailing blood across their pristine, translucent floors. 

  


Keith finds the bathroom at the end of the hallway, a pair of Acraiians leaving as he enters. They pay no mind to him, so he pays none to them; only waiting until the sound of their high, lilting voices disappears back down the hall before he goes over to the sinks to splash water on his face. Warm, to temporarily relieve the cold from his skin. He lets his hands run under the water for a long time, too, gloves cast to the side as he, for once, doesn’t try to avert his gaze as quickly as possible. Maybe he’s reached his capacity to be bothered by things tonight. Maybe this planet has been so unnerving in itself that the sight of anything familiar is at least more comfortable by comparison. 

  


Whatever it is, it leaves him only clinically observant as his eyes flicker across his wrists to his palms. He notes that there isn’t much of a color variation between where the end of his gloves fall and the skin of his forearms is normally left exposed; he supposes all this time in space has reverted him back to his natural pale state. The year he spent alone in the desert, he remembers his tan lines had become so stark that his eyes were always drawn like magnets to the contrast whenever they were uncovered. Those were the days when he wasn’t sure if it was going to be the memories that clung to him like sand dug beneath his nails—permanent, unerasable no matter how hard he scrubbed—, his brother’s nightmarish disappearance, the crippling isolation and loneliness, or the call of an inexplicable, untraceable voice in the desert that drove him completely manic first. 

  


As difficult as those days had been, looking back, Keith thinks they might have been some of the easiest of his life. At least then, he had been free beneath the clear blue sky, left to his solitude in a way that was sometimes blissful. There was always a reliable source of warmth—scorching heat in his lungs from the sun during the day and a heater to curl up next to in Shiro’s old shack at night—and he could scream into the caves and hear them echo affirmations back at him without worrying that someone was going to hear and call him crazy. Maybe he  _ had _ gone a little crazy, then. But maybe being a little crazy would have been a preferable lifestyle—would have been what he had chosen if he’d known where he was going to end up. 

  


Keith shouldn’t be thinking like this. He knows it, feels his mouth twist unhappily as he shuts off the water, dries his hands, and re-dons his gloves. The word  _ maybe  _ is nothing more than pointless mockery of misfortune that can’t be changed, or altered. It is the way it is, and that’s all. 

  


Lance is probably beginning to worry. _ How long have I been in here? _ Keith wonders offhandedly, and then with more awareness. For all he knows, he could have spent minutes staring blankly at the stream of running water from the sink. Shit. Lance is probably  _ worried,  _ now. 

  


He leaves the bathroom, caught up enough in his worry over his boyfriend’s worry to not notice, at first, that the hall isn’t empty. Standing about halfway down the hall, right between the bathroom and ballroom doors, Queen Lyria arches a brow, appearing merely distantly curious as she observes, “Paladin Keith.” 

  


He stops short, still a distance away from her. The ice along his skin flares in full force, sheets of ice scattering across the planes of his arms, a frozen trickle climbing up his spine to the base of his neck, glaciating his head to immobility so he can’t even  _ think  _ to look away from her. 

  


Keith can’t help but think, with no choice but to look at her, that she’s horridly beautiful. The kind of beautiful he’s all too familiar with, not because of people like Lance—but because it’s the direct opposite. Queen Lyria is the  _ luring _ kind of beautiful: captivating in all the right ways to draw you in, bright and inviting enough that if you weren’t looking for danger, you might not find it until it’s too late. She’s a moth-to-a-flame kind of beautiful. A venus flytrap kind of beautiful. 

  


A  _ deadly  _ kind of beautiful. It would be a mistake to go anywhere with her. It would be a mistake to be alone with her. 

  


Keith is  _ frightfully _ aware of how alone with her he is. 

  


He smooths his face into perfected blankness, keeps his hands still at his sides, and collectedly says, “Your Majesty. I was just heading back in to the party.” 

  


“I see.” Queen Lyria doesn’t move from her stance in the center of the hall, blocking the path to the doors. There’s no way he would be able to go around her without her being able to reach out and grab him. He stays where he is, still a good distance away. Not as far away as he’d like to be, but enough. “Though I was hoping I’d catch you alone like this. I’ve spoken with each of the other paladins, you know. They are all such charming company, don’t you think?” 

  


“Well, yeah,” Keith says, mind only half on the conversation at this point. He’s wondering where the hall behind him would lead if he turned the corner; wondering if there’s any place he could hide that she wouldn’t find him, or any way to get back to his friends without her catching up to him. “I live with them. I kind of have to think they’re charming.” 

  


The queen laughs. It’s a discordant sound, like it doesn’t quite fit within her vocal range. “Why don’t you take a walk with me, Paladin Keith?” she says. She takes a step forward. 

  


Keith goes to step back, but finds that his feet are still frozen. He can’t feel them. “I—no, thank you. My boyfriend’s waiting for me. He’s probably already worried that I’ve been gone too long. I should get back.” 

  


Queen Lyria is still moving, nearer and nearer to him with every step.  _ Come on,  _ Keith thinks, frustrated with his body’s inability to respond to the basic tasks he’s trying to command. His heart seems to be the only thing that isn’t frozen: it slams, frantic and knowing, against the base of his ribs, pumping dread-filled blood through his veins, weighing the rest of him down.  _ Move. Duck around her. Punch her. Do  _ anything. He can’t do anything. He thinks, distant and almost humorously bitter, that he should have grabbed his knife before dinner. 

  


“Your boyfriend, you say? That’s the blue one, correct? Or—perhaps the red one. I admit, I got a bit lost during Princess Allura’s explanation of how your dynamics work.” Queen Lyria’s within arm’s distance, now. 

  


Keith glances over her shoulder, honing in on the doors,  _ desperate  _ for them to open and spill someone else out into the hall so he can make his escape—that is, if his legs will even cooperate. “Yeah,” he says shortly, still trying to keep up his illusion of calm. He can’t let her see how much she’s getting to him. There’s a quietly doubtful part of him that wonders if she’s even  _ trying  _ to get to him, or if she doesn’t know what she’s doing. A part of him that wonders, even now, if he’s overreacting. 

  


Queen Lyria’s hand lands, graceful and crushing at once, on Keith’s upper arm. He can feel the coldness of her palm even through the fabric of his shirt, and the icy strength within it. “I’m sure he won’t miss us, just for a few minutes,” she says coolly. 

  


As if she contains some sort of sinister magic, her touch is all it takes for the ice to finally make its way into Keith’s heart, stopping it dead in its warning cry. And he  _ knows,  _ suddenly, that he’s not overreacting. 

  


“I—”  _ need to go. No.  _ The words stick in his throat, against the roof of his mouth, syrupy and bitter. Queen Lyria inches her hand up his arm, sweeps across his shoulder to touch her fingers to just beneath his jaw. 

  


“Who would have thought,” she muses, five points of sharp glass pricking his skin as she presses her  _ nails  _ to his skin—Keith is going to be  _ sick— _ “Galra, even half-Galra, are not typically so beautiful. Have you ever wondered if, perhaps, that is the only reason why your teammates keep you around?” 

  


Keith can’t speak. She continues anyway, as if she hadn’t expected him to, “Galra amount to almost nothing, Paladin Keith. Surely you know this. And once the Empire is eradicated, they will be worth only the bounties placed on their heads. So for the other paladins, as justice-seeking and universe-restoring as they are, to tolerate your presence as they do, I am sure you must provide them with some—incentive. Your unique beauty helps immensely in this regard, I assume.” 

  


And— _ finally.  _ Anger is the match that strikes against his ribcage, sparking his heart back to life in his chest. Unsticking his feet, he takes a single step back—not nearly far enough, but enough so that the queen’s hand drops from his skin. He doesn’t even have room within himself to feel relieved. All he can think is:  _ get out, get out, get out.  _

  


“What,” he says lowly, “are you implying.” 

  


“We both know perfectly well the answer to that, Paladin Keith.” 

  


Queen Lyria smiles. It’s the same smile from earlier that night; the one she’d directed at him as she’d hurled:  _ “Empathy,”  _ between her teeth, filled with contempt.  _ Hatred,  _ Keith realizes. There’s no mistaking it. He knows what searing, all-consuming hatred looks like when it’s directed at him. Another set of green eyes flash up in his memory, striking him with a jarring note of  _ horror  _ at how similar the two are. 

  


Keith knows what people with no empathy are capable of doing. He knows that there is very little that people who only have the capacity to feel this kind of anger  _ won’t  _ do. 

  


He takes another step back. Before Queen Lyria can follow him, at the end of the hall—a nauseatingly perfectly-timed miracle—the ballroom doors clatter open, spilling music out into the hall accompanied by a jaunty, whistled tune that continues even as the doors begin to close, taking the music with them. It continues until Coran catches sight of Keith and the queen down the hall, then cuts off abruptly. 

  


Immediate, weighted  _ relief  _ slams into Keith, as if dropped from a perilous height onto him, so overwhelming that it’s almost staggering. “Coran,” he says.

  


Coran draws nearer to him and Queen Lyria, eyes sharp and observant as he flicks his gaze between them. “Keith. Your Majesty,” he says, tone neutral, “What’s going on here?” 

  


The queen’s face has once again gone placid—the smooth, blank surface of untouchable glass. “Keith and I were just talking about what we hope to gain from this alliance,” she replies. 

  


Keith says nothing. Coran’s eyes narrow, just enough to be perceptible. “Right, then,” he says. “Apologies for cutting your discussion short, but I was actually just looking for Keith. There’s something I need to discuss with him.” 

  


“Of course. It is about time I return to my guests, anyhow,” Queen Lyria says mildly. “I am glad we were able to come to an understanding, Paladin Keith. I look forward to more time spent in your company throughout the rest of your stay.” 

  


Keith skin prickles once more at the casual departure, unable to discern anything but a thinly-veiled threat from the words. Even when the queen disappears back inside the ballroom, the impending sense of danger still lingers beneath his flesh. 

  


He turns back to Coran, doing his best to shake off the feeling. He asks, voice not quite level, “What did you need to talk to me about?” 

  


“Nothing,” the Altean man says. Deep suspicion is visible in the line of his shoulders, the subtle frown at his mouth. “I just sensed that you were uncomfortable.” 

  


Keith crosses his arms across his chest. It doesn’t do anything to stifle the chill. He flicks his gaze past Coran to the wall. 

  


Coran prompts, “Maybe you want to tell me what was really going on?” 

  


Keith doesn’t. He chews on his lip for a moment, debating whether or not he should still go find Lance. Ultimately, the thought of being in a room with the queen again settles the matter for him. He looks back to Coran, feeling shamefully small but unable to stop himself from asking, “Will you walk me back to our rooms?” 

  


Coran nods. He doesn’t ask questions as he begins walking back in the direction of the bathroom; Keith turns to fall in step beside him, shoving his hands into his pockets as they go. He’s grateful Coran seems to know where they’re going, because in the maze of identical corridors and stairways, everything blurs all too quickly in Keith’s perception. It’s so unlike him, he thinks bitterly. He’s always so good at staying vigilant until vigilance actually  _ matters.  _ But now his mind is reeling, green on glass on green—there’s no room for anything else. 

  


It’s when they reach the landing of another featureless stairwell that Keith has to stop, inhaling shakily; the air feels thinner, here, and even more difficult to breathe in than before. Coran notices immediately, stalling beside him, and Keith stares down at his shoes until they blur and blur, and then he says, “I don’t like her, Coran. I don’t—I don’t like this place.” 

  


The confession is enough, at least, that it tricks his brain into believing the next inhale brings more air with it. His lungs, however slightly, relax in his chest. 

  


Coran carefully asks, “Do you want to leave?” 

  


“No.” Keith shakes his head. “No, I’m not—there’s no point in leaving. We’re already here, and we _need_ this alliance, so—no. It’s . . . it’s fine, I just—I just wanted to say it. I wanted you to know.” 

  


Coran doesn’t say anything, and Keith is grateful; he doesn’t think there’s anything he could say that wouldn’t sound patronizing, in some way. The rest of the walk back to their rooms is silent. When they get there, Coran says, “I’m going to make us some tea.” He doesn’t wait for Keith to respond. 

  


He disappears through the common area to his room and reemerges with a canister of tea leaves and his Altean kettle. Keith watches him set it up on the low coffee table in the room’s center from the doorway, until Coran beckons him over with a hand. A moment later, he’s settling onto the couch opposite him, drawing his knees up to his chest. 

  


Coran is measuring out tea leaves to pour into the infuser and Keith says, while he’s distracted, “You won’t tell Lance, right? About Queen Lyria.” 

  


The orange-haired man hums, but doesn’t look up from his measuring. He dumps the leaves in and sets the lid in place. “I wasn’t planning to. You don’t want him to know?” 

  


“No.” Keith bites his lip, guilt turning in his chest at the thought of keeping yet another thing from his boyfriend. “He already wants to leave. If I give him a real reason to, there’s nothing that’ll keep him here.” 

  


Coran stills. “Is there a real reason?” he asks. The words are as measured as his tea leaves. Keith flicks his gaze down to his knees. 

  


“No,” he lies. “Lance is just—he’s worried all the time, lately. I don’t want to add anything more onto that.” 

  


Coran turns on the tea kettle, and it begins to glow bright blue. A percolating sound, not dissimilar to a coffeemaker, fills the silence of the room. 

  


Something in the quiet possesses Keith, takes control of his tongue, because before he can think about it, he’s blurting, “Lance knows, now. About—me. He’s known for a while, apparently.” 

  


Coran looks at him, face carefully guarded. Not like Queen Lyria’s blankness, under which only anger could possibly lie. He’s trying to figure out how Keith wants him to react, he thinks. “I suspected as much,” he says, “but I couldn’t be sure. How long?” 

  


“Since I got drunk on Svlenka. I told him. But I . . . I didn’t know that. Until a few days ago.” 

  


Coran still hasn’t decided on an emotion. “That’s . . . quite a while,” he observes. 

  


“Yeah.” Keith bites his lip again and blood blooms from where his teeth sink in, the skin there so abused already that the slightest pressure is all it takes. Metallic and familiar. “He—I didn’t want him to find out. But I think if he was going to, that’s the worst way it could’ve happened. Because now he’s got it in his head that he’s going to . . . I don’t know. He’s been tip-toeing around me. I can’t stand it.” 

  


The tea kettle emits a trio of quiet beeps. Coran removes it from the burner to pour into the two teacups alongside it. “Is he the only one who knows?” he asks. His tone is so light that the question almost passes for merely conversational. He passes one of the cups across the table to Keith, and he accepts it as he shakes his head. The porcelain is nearly scalding beneath his fingertips. Coran is already taking a sip. 

  


“You and Shiro,” he says, “and all the lions.” 

  


Coran pauses.  _ “All  _ the lions?” 

  


“Yeah. Black told me.”

  


Keith sinks back into the couch cushions, taking his tea with him. He clutches it within his hands, letting his palms do most of the work so his fingertips won’t melt off. But even as burning as it is, it’s still preferable to the frigid atmosphere. When he exhales, Keith wonders distantly how his breath doesn’t come out in a cloud of icy vapor. 

  


He stares down into his teacup. A pale droplet of amber has sloshed up onto the cup’s rim. He swipes it away with his finger. He says, “I’m never drinking alcohol again. I don’t even know why I did it in the first place. I’ve always . . .  _ hated  _ it.” 

  


He can’t recall the number of times plastic cups were shoved into his hands, eyes narrow-slitted with expectancy:  _ don’t you dare act like a little bitch in front of my friends, Keith.  _ The unpleasant aftertaste of beer and the burn of vodka in his throat; the way it made everything go blurred and disconcerting around the edges so that in the morning, it always took a moment to assess all the dull aches in his body and realize that alcohol wasn’t the only thing forced on him. He doesn’t have to try very hard to conjure up the way it smelled, mixed with sweat and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. The scent-memory alone is enough to make his stomach twist into nauseous figure-eights. 

  


By comparison, he supposes past experiences make what happened on Svlenka seem tame and innocent. But thinking about it leaves him with the same gutted feeling that every other time had. Feeling like he can’t trust himself—remembering that his own body is capable of betraying him—fills his mouth with the same awful taste of blood and bitterness. 

  


He takes a sip of the Altean tea in hopes of erasing the taste. All it manages to do is burn the roof of his mouth. He takes another sip. There won’t be anything  _ to  _ taste if his tastebuds are all cauterized. 

  


“It was the first time I’d been drunk since I was fifteen.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying any of this. It’s all circling through his mind, looping and dragging lazily, the dregs of memories nearly forgotten floating back up to the surface with the silt. He wonders how it’s possible that he’s almost completely blocked so many terrible things from his mind, until he remembers all the other terrible things that are  _ always  _ there, right at the surface. There just isn’t enough room for it all to exist at once.

  


“I drank so much that I almost died,” he only recalls when the words are leaving his mouth. And he’s stuck on that, now—the memory of the cheap linoleum that made up Shiro and Adam’s apartment floor, his hand around a bottle of something expensive that he couldn’t name but burned from his throat all the way down to his stomach. He remembers the way the guilt tasted on his tongue and the all-consuming  _ misery _ that drove him to ignore it. “Shiro and Adam found me passed out on the kitchen floor when they got home. I had to have my stomach pumped. It was . . . really bad.” The words feel almost laughably insufficient. “But none of it was as bad as telling Shiro that it was on purpose.” 

  


When he closes his eyes, he can picture the look on his face as if it was yesterday. Shiro had been younger then, but he’d looked old as Keith stumbled through shaky apologies, saying,  _ “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to be like this. I didn’t want you to have to deal with this. I just thought maybe it . . . maybe it was the better choice, for everyone.”  _ Shiro had  _ cried, _ and Keith felt like he was the  _ worst  _ human being to ever blemish the face of the Earth.  _ “Please don’t do this again, Keith. Please. I love you—please don’t do this to yourself again.”  _

  


Keith hadn’t been able to do anything but swear that he wouldn’t. And he didn’t, because no way in  _ hell  _ was he ever going to do that to Shiro again. 

  


His next inhale is as shaky as he had been, way back then; shakier, maybe. “I—sorry. I don’t know why I told you that,” he says, looking up at Coran. He’s remained silent this whole time—so silent that Keith almost forgot he was there at all. His eyes are dark, heavy with the weight of what Keith’s just dropped on him, but not unbearably so. Keith’s relieved. He thinks the last thing he’s equipped to deal with tonight is another person’s pain on his behalf. He can’t even deal with his own. 

  


“You don’t have to apologize for everything, you know,” Coran says. The polarity between the darkness in his face and the light, even tone of his voice is so stark it could almost give Keith whiplash. “I don’t mind listening. I’ve always been told it’s one of the things I do best.” 

  


“Still.” Keith’s mouth twists. His chest churns with guilt and bitter regret—ceaseless, undying. He’s so  _ sick  _ of this being the unending cycle of his life. “No one should have to hear about these things.” 

  


“And you shouldn’t have had to go through them,” Coran counters. “But it is what it is. I’ve always been a firm believer that it’s better to share the burden. Let the people you love help carry the weight.” 

  


Coran finishes his cup of tea. He sets it on the table to pour another one; porcelain  _ clinks  _ against glass. Tea sloshes into the center. 

  


“That’s the thing,” Keith says, eyes fixed on the amber movement. “If I handed them the burden, wouldn’t it mean I don’t love them at all?” 

  


He wouldn’t wish even a summary of the things he’s seen, the things he’s been through, on his worst enemies. The thought of laying his own personal tragedies bare in front of the people he claims to love like family, presenting it like some kind of nightmarish gift and saying:  _ here it is; here is the detailed list of every awful thing that’s ever happened to me—take it, let it keep you up at night so I can finally get some rest.  _ He can’t think of anything more horrific, or selfish. He thinks about putting that burden on  _ Pidge,  _ who’s already seen far more tragedy than she ever should have been forced to, and the thought makes him feel sick in the deepest trenches of his bones. 

  


Coran sets the kettle back onto the burner. A droplet of tea has escaped from the inside, and it drips slowly down from the rim like a single amber tear. When it hits the burner, it sizzles. 

  


Coran tells him, “I don’t think that’s how it works.” 

  


Keith finishes his own tea—cold now, and as flavorless as it was to begin with—and says nothing. The look in Coran’s eyes says:  _ there’s nothing you could tell us that would be too much. There’s nothing we wouldn’t be able to handle.  _

  


Keith doesn’t tell him that he’s grossly optimistic, if he genuinely thinks that’s true. He doesn’t tell him that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and that he  _ definitely  _ wouldn’t say that if he saw even the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of things Keith wouldn’t be able to say out loud, even if he wanted to or knew how. 

  


He stares at the glowing blue of the tea kettle until the light blurs in his vision. He and Coran sit in the silence until Coran has poured the last of the tea into his cup and the light goes out. 

  
  


_____

  
  


_ There are many things that Keith will later come to realize were entirely preventable, had he used a single shred of intelligence or followed the bread crumbs his own intuition were leaving for him along the hellish path he was traveling down. But if there’s one word to sum up Keith’s entire existence, it’s  _ stubbornness,  _ and stubborn is precisely what Keith has always been, and what he is now.  _

  


_ It’s Keith’s fifth night with the Camdens that he locks down  _ hard  _ on the decision that he is going nowhere. His new foster sister has been as cryptic and unfriendly as she had been the first day: she doesn’t speak much, and doesn’t seem to want much to do with Keith in general. She keeps her head down, but her eyes have the ever-wary quality of a cat—like she’s expecting a fight, or an attack. Like she knows, were one of those situations to arise, that she would lose.  _

  


_ The thing is—the thing that maybe perplexes Keith about her most—is that there doesn’t seem to be any  _ reason  _ for her to be like that. Even if she comes from a . . . not good situation, Mrs. Camden said that Isabella’s been with them for seven months. That’s a long time, at least in Keith’s ten-year-old mind, and certainly enough time to get used to a safe environment. And the Camdens’ house, from what he can tell so far, is one of the  _ safest  _ homes he’s ever been in.  _

  


_ The Camdens are nice. They’ve given Keith his own room and new clothes to replace his worn ones and three consistent meals every day so far—with snacks in between, whenever he wants. Granted, Keith isn’t so comfortable about people giving him gifts anymore—not after what happened when he lived with the Moores—but so far, things haven’t soured, and he’s holding out hope that  _ maybe  _ this will be the family he doesn’t have to be taken from or run away from.  _

  


_ Even Isabella, with her tense and frosty attitude, is an upgrade from foster siblings he’s had in the past. Keith is beginning to wonder about Isabella: to wonder if maybe the reason she’d told him to run away isn’t because this place is bad after all, but because she doesn’t want to have to share her space.  _

  


_ Which—maybe he can understand, a little. It’s quiet here, and it smells nice, and Keith thinks if he had this all to himself for seven months, he wouldn’t want to share with some other kid, either. But at the same time . . . _

  


Keith  _ is the other kid. And this is kind of, sort of a last resort for him. His most recent social worker says if this family doesn’t work out, he’s going to have to go to a group home, because he’s so difficult that normal families won’t feel like bothering with his constant disobedience and other behavioral issues. And Keith’s heard horror stories from other foster kids about the group homes, so his most recent goal has been to avoid them at all costs.  _

  


_ But tonight, five nights into his stay with the Camdens, seated across the table from his new foster sister and looking at her with scrutinizing eyes, Keith comes up with a new goal.  _

  


_ Keith is going to stay here as long as he possible can. He’s going to be on his best behavior, and he’s going to be the best foster kid the Camdens will ever have—including Isabella—because he can’t afford not to be. He lucked out with this family, and his foster sister is just going to have to deal with him being here.  _

  


_ And if being around him is so bad, why doesn’t  _ she  _ run away? Let Keith stay, just this once. He’s always the one who has to run. He figures a break is only fair, right about now. Hasn’t he been through enough?  _

  


_ The Camdens are a little strange in some ways, but not necessarily bad ways. Like now, for instance—they’ve had dinner together every night since Keith has been here. Most foster families don’t really do that; at least, none he’s ever been in before. It’s a little awkward, since Keith isn’t used to it, but it’s no more awkward than eating microwaved frozen dinners on the couch in between his foster siblings while they fought over the remote. In fact, Keith thinks that over time, he might even grow to like these dinners.  _

  


_ Mrs. Camden talks a lot, mostly to Mr. Camden, but she makes sure to include Keith every so often. She tries with Isabella, too, but Isabella never answers. Keith carefully watches for the foster parents’ reactions to this, but Mrs. Camden never seems to get agitated or angry that Isabella isn’t talking, and Mr. Camden doesn’t seem to react much to anything, anyway.  _

  


_ Keith isn’t quite sure what he thinks about Mr. Camden, yet. He’s the sort of guy Keith thinks his dad probably would’ve chuckled at: the type to wear ties and fancy shoes no matter the occasion, hair always combed back like an old movie star’s, almost always guaranteed to be both  _ “pompous and pretentious. Don’t ever tell anyone they’re pompous and pretentious to their face, though, Keith, because it might get you in trouble, and then it would come back on  _ me, _ and then I’d have to fight someone, which wouldn’t be fun for anybody. Let’s you and me both leave the fighting to others, alright, son?” 

  


_ Keith doesn’t know what his dad’s opinion of the man would mean, here. On the one hand, Mr. Camden  _ did  _ agree to take Keith in, even though he’s a high-risk case, so he can’t be too bad. But on the other—who wears ties to dinner in their own home, when there aren’t even guests over? He just thinks it’s a little weird, is all.  _

  


_ But, Keith’s dad also always said that weird doesn’t mean bad. It just means you have to try to understand it more. So maybe Keith needs to try to understand Mr. Camden a little more.  _

  


_ He sits up a little straighter, sets his fork down, and turns to the man. “My social worker told me Mrs. Camden is a doctor, but not where you work. What do you do, Mr. Camden?”  _

  


_ There are a few things Keith takes note of, the moment he asks the question. The way Mr. Camden’s eyes flicker to Mrs. Camden’s, some unspoken conversation passing between them as a smile stretches across his face. The way Mrs. Camden’s own red, lipsticked smile seems to grow even more, becoming almost grotesque, but not quite.  _

  


_ And then there’s Isabella, whose face goes as white as a ghost, minutely shaking her head as if she’s trying to pass along some unspoken message. But whatever it is, Keith can’t read it. He doesn’t get why everything he does is such a big deal to her.  _

  


_ Mr. Camden’s voice is smooth, low enough to be almost hushed when he turns his attention to Keith, smile still in place, and tells him, “Well, I can assure you my job is much more exciting that Mrs. Camden’s boring pediatrics job. I’m a film-maker.”  _

  


_ Keith’s brows crease in the center as he tries to figure out what that is. “Like . . . you make movies and stuff?”  _

  


_ Mr. Camden’s white teeth flash—movie star bright, Keith distantly thinks. “Yes, exactly. In fact, I used to, and sometimes still work in Hollywood on movies . . . and stuff. Do you know what Hollywood is, Keith?”  _

  


_ Keith rolls his eyes. “Of course I know what Hollywood is.” He only catches himself when the words are already out of his mouth—he freezes in horror, an apology already springing into his mouth, and he wonders with sudden starbursts of frustration  _ how  _ he always messes everything up so quickly—but to his complete shock, Mr. Camden doesn’t rebuke him. Instead, he laughs, a low, deep sound.  _

  


_ “I see we have a smart one on our hands,” Mr. Camden says with amusement to his wife. Keith’s heart settles with relief, though still beats with perplexed surprise at the way neither of his foster parents get angry, considering Keith’s been hit a couple times for saying stuff like that in the past.  _

  


_ But, “Yes,” Mrs. Camden replies, her own smile easy and curved with delight as she flicks her gaze from her husband back to Keith. “I think you may be right.”  _

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith wakes up with his heart pounding dully between his ears, so heavy and loud that for a moment, nothing exists outside of it. He breathes in, the action painful, taking far longer than it should. On his exhale, he sits up, blankets pooling around his waist, trying to remember where he is. 

  


The room is dark, save for the twinkling lights filtering in from the clear glass wall to his left. In front of it, Lance sits on the floor, knees curled into his chest, arms loosely wound around them. He looks over at the sound of movement. 

  


“Are you feeling sick again?” is the first thing he says, words hushed, as if not to wake the shadows around them. Keith shakes his head. His heart pounds in absonant synch with it. 

  


“No. I’m fine.” 

  


Lance turns his gaze back towards the window. Hiding his face, as if Keith would be able to read anything on it anyway. “Coran said you left the party because you weren’t feeling well.” 

  


Keith draws his own knees into his chest. He looks down at them as he mutters, “Yeah.” 

  


He doesn’t know what to make of the blankness in Lance’s voice when he says, “You didn’t have to lie to me earlier. You could’ve just said that. We could’ve left together.” 

  


Prickling, stabbing guilt along Keith’s skin. It’s almost more unbearable than the chill, worse now than it was before. He brings the covers up around his shoulders, presses them into place with his knees. “I didn’t lie,” he quietly says, “or I—didn’t mean to. It didn’t hit me until I was leaving the bathroom, and then Coran found me before I could find you. That’s . . . I swear that’s the truth, Lance.” 

  


Lance says nothing. Something awful begins to unfurl in the pit of his stomach. 

  


“Lance,” he repeats. “Please don’t be mad.” 

  


At that, Lance turns back to him. His expression is lost to the shadows; he sighs heavily, and for a moment, that awful feeling begins to balloon into small fireworks of fear. But then he pats the floor beside him, says, “I’m not . . .  _ mad,  _ Keith. Can you come here a sec?” 

  


Keith does, taking the thickest blanket with him, wrapping up in it as he settles down with Lance. He reaches immediately to wrap his arm around Keith’s shoulders, and Keith shivers as he melts into the warm touch. Lance looks at him, and now, in the light, Keith can see that there’s that ever-constant concern in his eyes again. “Are you cold?” he asks. 

  


The question causes Keith to still. “Are you not?” 

  


“No,” Lance says. “I’m honestly kind of hot. It’s like Arizona here—except, Arizona actually cools down at night, you know?” 

  


Keith’s heart picks up its unsteady thumping again.  _ No, I don’t know,  _ he almost says. “Yeah,” he lies instead, “I don’t know why I’m so cold.” 

  


Lance hums, tucking Keith closer against him as he frets. “Maybe your fever hasn’t completely broken. It was pretty bad last night.” 

  


Keith rests his head on Lance’s shoulder. “Yeah. Maybe,” he mutters. 

  


Lance kisses the top of his head. Then he stills, his breath stirring Keith’s hair as he hesitates. “Speaking of last night.” 

  


Keith’s heart thuds. “What?”

  


“You . . .” Lance exhales, as if preparing himself to say something he knows Keith isn’t going to like. “You kept saying someone’s name, in your sleep. I wasn’t sure if I should mention it but you—you’ve said it before. Once.” 

  


Keith tenses. He lifts his head from Lance’s shoulder, shifting so he can read his face. He looks as hesitant as he sounded, and—guilty. 

  


“What,” he repeats. 

  


Lance takes another breath. Eyes darting away from Keith’s face, he says, “Who . . . who’s Isabella?” 

  


Cold, metallic dread wraps around Keith’s heart. He pushes away from his boyfriend, inhaling sharp and uneven as he follows Lance’s gaze out the window. He’s almost dizzied by it—the mere  _ sound  _ of her name, coming out of Lance’s mouth, feels wrong. 

  


If Keith’s life is divided into a very clear  _ before  _ and  _ after,  _ Isabella and Lance occupy two completely different planes of existence. Their paths aren’t supposed to intersect. Lance isn’t supposed to know her name, and he  _ certainly  _ isn’t supposed to know who she is. 

  


“I’m not talking about her,” he says. He tucks his blanket tighter around his shoulders. Far below, the lights of Acra’s skyscrapers glow white, golden, icy blue. He stares at them until his eyes burn. 

  


“Why not?” Lance presses. He looks over at him; Keith isn’t looking at him, but he can feel his gaze on the side of his face, burning the same bright blue as the buildings below. “Who—who is she?” 

  


“She’s not important.” The words taste bitter and ashy, the guilt of betrayal constricting around them, dissolving into dead embers on his tongue. He’s instantly horrified and regretful, but he doesn’t take the words back. “She—she doesn’t  _ matter,  _ Lance.” 

  


“You said you weren’t enough for her,” Lance pushes, the words sounding thick and upset. “You wouldn’t have said that if she wasn’t important. Did she—did she  _ hurt  _ y—”

  


_ “Enough,”  _ Keith bursts. He curls over his knees, shutting his eyes as the lights of the city flare up, suddenly, too bright and hot in his vision. “I’m  _ not  _ going to talk about her. Just forget about it.” 

  


“Then what _will_ you talk about?” Lance demands. “You don’t want to talk about this. You don’t want to talk about _us._ Is there anything we _can_ talk about? Or are we just going to be stuck in this argument forever?” 

  


“I—” Every protest and counterargument shrivels up and dies in his throat.  _ Argument.  _ It hits him at once, stings like a slap to the face, the press of unacknowledged tears, as he realizes that that’s what’s  _ happening.  _ They’re  _ arguing— _ the endless kind, the kind that circles around and around but never  _ goes  _ anywhere. And he knows that it’s just going to get worse. Arguing will turn into  _ fighting,  _ and then he’ll shut down and Lance will get  _ mad,  _ and there’s no way they can avoid this.  _ This  _ is always going to be between them now. Keith and his silence versus Lance and his persistence, and this— _ this  _ is why he didn’t want Lance to know. Because he’s never going to leave it alone. 

  


The only alternative to Lance never knowing anything was always Lance knowing  _ everything.  _ Because he’s never content with just a single piece of the puzzle—he has to have them  _ all.  _ But Keith can’t give him that without pulling him into a place he can never come back from. He doesn’t want to take Lance there. He thinks about his earlier conversation with Coran, thinks:  _ if I handed them the burden, wouldn’t it mean I don’t love them at all?  _

  


“I don’t want to fight with you, Lance,” he whispers. The words feel blurry around the edges, cotton-thick and sticking in his throat, in the air around him when they fall. “I don’t—I don’t want to fight.” 

  


“I don’t, either.” Lance sighs. He reaches for Keith again, gently tugging him back into his side, and Keith lets him. “Look, I shouldn’t have said that. We . . . we won’t be here forever. I know that. I’m just—frustrated, I guess.” 

  


“Because of me,” Keith says, voice small. Lance shakes his head, the movement tousling his hair. His hand settles there a moment later, twisting his fingers gently into the strands at the back of Keith’s head. 

  


“No,” he quietly says, “not because of you. But because—I feel like there’s nothing I can  _ do,  _ right now. You need time, and I  _ know  _ that—I know that none of this is easy, for you. And I don’t want you to feel like I’m rushing you into talking about anything because I—I  _ don’t  _ want to do that. I want you to take however long you need. But I guess I just . . . I feel so useless. It’s . . . hard, watching you struggle, and not knowing how to help. And worrying that I’m making everything worse. I feel like I’m letting you down, all the time.” 

  


“You’re not letting me down.” Keith’s voice has dropped to a whisper. He’s tired again, limbs growing heavy as he curls back into Lance, letting him do most of the work in supporting him. “And you’re never useless. You’re—everything. More than I deserve.” 

  


Lance tightens his grip around his shoulders. “That’s not true,” he says. “You deserve everything.” 

  


“Please,” Keith says tiredly. “Please, can we be done with . . . emotional conversations, for now? All I can focus on right now is getting through the rest of the week on this stupid planet.” 

  


Lance is quiet for a long time; internally debating, Keith supposes. By the time he answers, Keith is already halfway to sleep. 

  


“Yeah,” he finally, slowly exhales. Keith unconsciously matches his own to it. “I guess . . . there is that. I don’t know about you, but I’m already sick of this place. I want to go home.” 

  


Keith hums, a quiet, wordless agreement. He presses his face closer to Lance’s neck and breathes in steady, comforting warmth. 

  


So comforting, in fact, that when Lance says, “But it’s only a week, right? We can totally handle a week here. We’ll secure the alliance and the knowledge that we’re one step closer to defeating Zarkon, and then we’ll be home in no time.  _ So _ little time, in fact, that it’ll be like we never left,” Keith believes, for just a moment, that he’s right. 

  



End file.
